Tag Archives: grace

Everybody’s Got A But

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“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ…”
(Ephesians 2:4-5 ESV)

I hate to point out the obvious, and I want to avoid any semblance of “potty humor,” but the truth remains:

Everybody’s Got A But.

No, for those of you snickering at your computer, that’s not what I’m talking about.  That’s “but” with one “t” not two.  The “but” to which I refer is the juxtaposition of two opposing and conflicting statements (i.e. “We should see other people, but we can still be friends”) which compose the greater truth (“It’s over”).  

I came upon this revelation as I was studying the lives of the Old Testament Kings.  Consider this with me for a moment.  King David: he is described as having a heart after God’s own heart, but he had Uriah killed to cover his own sin with Bathsheba. Solomon built the temple dedicated to the glory of God, was endowed with great wisdom, wealth, and honor, but he turned his heart from the Lord and clung to his 700 wives and 300 concubines (yikes!). 

After the division of the Kingdom of Israel, we read that some of the kings of Judah were evil kings while others brought reform and sought the Lord.  Yet even those good kings had buts.  Asa (2 Chron 15) renewed the covenant with the Lord, and the Lord gave Judah rest, but the high places were not taken out of Israel.  Jehoshaphat (2 Chron 17-20) was a good king who sought the Lord, but he made alliances with Ahab and Ahaziah (wicked kings from the northern tribes) and the high places were not removed, nor did the people set their hearts upon the God of their fathers.  Joash (2 Chron 23-24) was a king who did what was right in the eyes of the Lord while Jehoiada was priest, but after the priest’s death, Joash abandoned the house of the Lord and had the priest’s son stoned to death.  The stories go on and on.  Everybody’s got a but.

We’ve even got them today.  We put our best foot forward, we have a outward appearance that we work hard to show to the world around us, but we know that we are sinners.  Paul recognizes this in Romans 7, “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… It is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me… I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out… I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.”  Jesus put it more succinctly, when encouraging faithfulness in his disciples, he called them to pray that we not enter temptation, for “the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”  Everybody’s got a but.

If I may be so bold today and go one step further, let me suggest to you that this is the gospel message, and that we are saved by the “but” of God.  I know that sounds shocking, and I have a hard time writing it, but I mean it with all seriousness.  It is the “but” in our lives that separates us from God.  We are called to righteousness, we were created to live for the glory of God.  But sin keeps us down.  Sin stains us and obscures the reflection of God in our lives, so that what we mirror back to God for the world to see is a cheap and broken imitation of who God really is.  Sin brings captivity of the will, corruption of the heart and mind, and ultimately leads to eternal death.

Paul puts it this way,

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience – among whom we all once lived in the passions of the flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.  But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:1-5).

This “but” is the gospel!  This is the juxtaposition of two opposing realities.  We were dead in our sin, but God is merciful and gracious!  We were lost, but we are now saved!

So I say it again, everybody’s got a but.  I’m just thankful that mine’s been covered by the grace of God.

SDG

Christians and the Law

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I’m preaching this Sunday on Growth in Righteousness as an essential aspect of the Christian Life.  My text for Sunday is Matthew 5:17-20:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have not come to abolish but to fulfill.  For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one iota, not a dot, will pass away from the Law until all is accomplished.  Therefore whoever sets aside one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same, they will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.  For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and the Pharisees, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. (This is my own translation).

I found this text, and the study of it through the week, to be very interesting considering what my denomination is considering right now.  There is a motion being voted upon by the Presbyteries to remove the explicit ordination standard of “fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness” from our ordination requirements, and to replace it with a rather innocuous, confusing, and ambiguous statment that uses a lot of words to say nothing at all.

I couldn’t read and meditate on Matt 5:19, “whoever sets aside one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same,” without thinking of what’s happening in the church.  The church continues to set aside or relax the Biblical teaching on marriage and divorce, sexual immorality and purity, tithing and stewardship – will Presbyterians be the least in the Kingdom?  Will we be there at all?

We are called to righteousness.  To reflect the glory of God is to live a righteous life.  Jesus tells us that unless our righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, we will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  We cannot be righteous apart from Christ, it is His righteousness that saves us, His righteousness that covers us.  But at the same time, if the life we now live we live in the Spirit of Christ, then should not our lives reflect and be marked by righteousness as well.

We are quick to argue, “I am saved by grace through faith – not by works.”  Yes, and amen.  But read on, we are saved by grace through faith apart from works, “created in Christ Jesus for good works (righteousness).  The purpose of God’s grace in your life, the goal of your salvation, is that you would give glory to God through the righteousness of Christ manifest in your life.

Martin Lloyd Jones put it this way:

The whole purpose of grace, in a sense, is just to enable us to keep the law.  There is nothing more fatal that to regard holiness and sactification as expereicnes to be received.  No; holness means being righteous, and being righteous means keeping the law.  Therefore if your so-called grace (which you say you have recieved) does not make you keep the law, you have not recieved grace.  You may have recieved a psychological experience, but you have never recieved the grace of God.  What is grace?  It is that marvllous gift of God which, having delivered a man from teh curse of the law, enables him to keep it and to be righteous as Christ was righteous, for He kept the law perfectly.  Grace is that which brings me to love God; and if I love God,  I long to keep His commandments. ‘He that has my commandments, and keeps them,’ Christ said, ‘he it is that loves me.'”
(Martin Lloyd Jones – Studies in the Sermon on the Mount – page 197).

Friends, stand firm, do not turn to the right or left from God’s word, but walk in the light that it shine upon your path, that you may grow in righteousness as you walk with the Lord.

SDG