When Martin Luther was a monk he agonized over a heavy problem in his life.
He could not stop sinning. He wanted to serve. He wanted to follow and please God but he was honest enough to see it was impossible.
A very long story short he found the answer in Romans 1:17 where Paul quotes Habakkuk 2:4, “The just shall live by faith.”
Martin Luther found the answer and the answer is grace.
Ephesians 2:8-9
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.
But the grace Luther found was a “costly” grace. It was a grace that answered his problem, “How can I follow Christ as His disciple and be obedient when I can’t stop sinning?”
Grace is the answer.
It does not make obedience to Christ null and void. It makes obedience to Christ possible. It calls the disciple to leave his nets and his tax collecting and his law as a Pharisee and “follow Me”. It calls the disciple to leave his comfort zone.
John 14:15
“If you love Me, keep My commandments.
Obedience to Christ and His commands has not been made an option.
1 John 2:3-5
3 Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. 4 He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him.
Never are we told that we can ignore His commandments and back slide into the life we were saved from.
John 8:31-32
31 Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. 32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
We are identified with Christ by our obedience.
We are saved for obedience.
Ephesians 2:10
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
Titus 2:14
who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.
This should be sobering, convicting, stuff. This information should tug on our hearts to submit to His Lordship and obey as slaves to His will.
But at the same time, if this conviction strikes deep, we also must be honest that… We fail.
I can’t obey Christ at all times and in all areas of my life. Try as all of us might.
And we suffer in guilt as Luther did. Until we truly learn the truth of grace. Grace sees to it that we do not perish when we fail in our running the race, (Romans 7:23-25).
Here is “costly” grace. It is the grace that allows the disciple of Christ to follow the “upward call”, (Philippians 3:13-14), and when we fail we have grace to keep us from perishing, (1 John 2:1).
The obedient Christian is the one who is truly living under grace.
What grace does not do is cancel out obedience.
Romans 6:1
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?
And yet we see all around us a “cheap” grace taught and believed.
Cheap grace has taken Christ’s death and our inability and pounded out a heresy called “license to sin”.
There are too many in the church who see their inability to obey, have heard of the riches of Christ’s death and so they shrug their shoulders and continue in their carnal habits and old life. And, mind you, they have been taught in their churches that this is exactly how grace works. Just like food stamps or welfare. You couldn’t possibly make enough to pay your bills so Christ will do it all for you. “Drink up, Shriners.”
Repentance is not preached. Obedience is not taught or sought. Personal holiness is a concept that is foreign at best and rejected as “legalism” at worst.
Right about here is where I typically have to reiterate that I am no where teaching Pelagianism, salvation by works. Works and doing good never saved anybody, (Ephesians 2:8-9), and I’m not saying it does.
I’m not talking about how to get saved. I’m talking about following Jesus and what a follower of Jesus looks like after he has been “bought at a price”, (1 Corinthians 6:20; 7:23). And a disciple of Christ does not look like the “old man”, (Romans 6:6).
Costly grace looks for the answer to “How can I follow Christ as He has called me when I stumble and fall in sin every day?”
Cheap grace looks for the answer to, “How much can I get away with?”
This is dogma in too many evangelical Christian churches today. Don’t think about it. You can’t so don’t. You’re fine the way you are. God loves you and is happy right where you are.
“Right where you are.” is NOT where God ever intended any of us to stay…
Romans 8:29
For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
God intends us to be like His Son.
How? He will “conform” us.
And we, for our part, obey His conforming.
Cheap grace calls all this false teaching. It insists on calling this salvation by works and preaches to the masses that obedience is legalist, drastic, pharisaical, self righteous, and flies in the face of the teachings of Jesus.
What they recognize is that obedience costs and they see no reason for it since all bills are now stamped “paid in full”.
But what the Bible says is that cheap grace does not understand what has happened in the transaction between the Savior and the saved.
1 Corinthians 6:20
For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
We are “free” from sin and death and judgment.
We are not “free” from the One who bought us with His death on the cross. Unless, of course, He has not “bought” you in which case you’re not His and can go about your business.
But those of us who are His have a calling, “follow Me”.
1 John 2:6
He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.
To where? To be like Him, (2 Corinthians 3:18).
And that grace costs. It can cost your luxury, your time, your comfort, your habits, your money, but Jesus knows what you can bear, (1 Corinthians 10:13), and He has it all worked out.
1 John 5:3
For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.
Not a legalistic, constantly serious, spiritually superior, Pharisee.
But finally free to live as God wants us to.
John 10:10
…I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
He could not stop sinning. He wanted to serve. He wanted to follow and please God but he was honest enough to see it was impossible.
A very long story short he found the answer in Romans 1:17 where Paul quotes Habakkuk 2:4, “The just shall live by faith.”
Martin Luther found the answer and the answer is grace.
Ephesians 2:8-9
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.
But the grace Luther found was a “costly” grace. It was a grace that answered his problem, “How can I follow Christ as His disciple and be obedient when I can’t stop sinning?”
Grace is the answer.
It does not make obedience to Christ null and void. It makes obedience to Christ possible. It calls the disciple to leave his nets and his tax collecting and his law as a Pharisee and “follow Me”. It calls the disciple to leave his comfort zone.
John 14:15
“If you love Me, keep My commandments.
Obedience to Christ and His commands has not been made an option.
1 John 2:3-5
3 Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. 4 He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him.
Never are we told that we can ignore His commandments and back slide into the life we were saved from.
John 8:31-32
31 Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. 32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
We are identified with Christ by our obedience.
We are saved for obedience.
Ephesians 2:10
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
Titus 2:14
who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.
This should be sobering, convicting, stuff. This information should tug on our hearts to submit to His Lordship and obey as slaves to His will.
But at the same time, if this conviction strikes deep, we also must be honest that… We fail.
I can’t obey Christ at all times and in all areas of my life. Try as all of us might.
And we suffer in guilt as Luther did. Until we truly learn the truth of grace. Grace sees to it that we do not perish when we fail in our running the race, (Romans 7:23-25).
Here is “costly” grace. It is the grace that allows the disciple of Christ to follow the “upward call”, (Philippians 3:13-14), and when we fail we have grace to keep us from perishing, (1 John 2:1).
The obedient Christian is the one who is truly living under grace.
What grace does not do is cancel out obedience.
Romans 6:1
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?
And yet we see all around us a “cheap” grace taught and believed.
Cheap grace has taken Christ’s death and our inability and pounded out a heresy called “license to sin”.
There are too many in the church who see their inability to obey, have heard of the riches of Christ’s death and so they shrug their shoulders and continue in their carnal habits and old life. And, mind you, they have been taught in their churches that this is exactly how grace works. Just like food stamps or welfare. You couldn’t possibly make enough to pay your bills so Christ will do it all for you. “Drink up, Shriners.”
Repentance is not preached. Obedience is not taught or sought. Personal holiness is a concept that is foreign at best and rejected as “legalism” at worst.
Right about here is where I typically have to reiterate that I am no where teaching Pelagianism, salvation by works. Works and doing good never saved anybody, (Ephesians 2:8-9), and I’m not saying it does.
I’m not talking about how to get saved. I’m talking about following Jesus and what a follower of Jesus looks like after he has been “bought at a price”, (1 Corinthians 6:20; 7:23). And a disciple of Christ does not look like the “old man”, (Romans 6:6).
Costly grace looks for the answer to “How can I follow Christ as He has called me when I stumble and fall in sin every day?”
Cheap grace looks for the answer to, “How much can I get away with?”
This is dogma in too many evangelical Christian churches today. Don’t think about it. You can’t so don’t. You’re fine the way you are. God loves you and is happy right where you are.
“Right where you are.” is NOT where God ever intended any of us to stay…
Romans 8:29
For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
God intends us to be like His Son.
How? He will “conform” us.
And we, for our part, obey His conforming.
Cheap grace calls all this false teaching. It insists on calling this salvation by works and preaches to the masses that obedience is legalist, drastic, pharisaical, self righteous, and flies in the face of the teachings of Jesus.
What they recognize is that obedience costs and they see no reason for it since all bills are now stamped “paid in full”.
But what the Bible says is that cheap grace does not understand what has happened in the transaction between the Savior and the saved.
1 Corinthians 6:20
For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
We are “free” from sin and death and judgment.
We are not “free” from the One who bought us with His death on the cross. Unless, of course, He has not “bought” you in which case you’re not His and can go about your business.
But those of us who are His have a calling, “follow Me”.
1 John 2:6
He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.
To where? To be like Him, (2 Corinthians 3:18).
And that grace costs. It can cost your luxury, your time, your comfort, your habits, your money, but Jesus knows what you can bear, (1 Corinthians 10:13), and He has it all worked out.
1 John 5:3
For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.
Not a legalistic, constantly serious, spiritually superior, Pharisee.
But finally free to live as God wants us to.
John 10:10
…I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
No comments:
Post a Comment