a big fat lie

When we sin and mess up our lives, we find that God doesn’t go off and leave us… He enters into our trouble and saves us.

-Eugene Peterson

          

Things aren’t always the way we are told they are.  I was in church this past Sunday and my pastor was going on about the virtue of honesty.  During his message he talked about the most well-known story in terms of honesty possibly in American history.  It’s a story involving the patriot, war hero and president, George Washington.  The story goes that young George was asked by his father about a tree that had been cut down at the family compound and responded: Father, I cannot tell a lie. I chopped down this cherry tree.

Well, the story is a big fat lie—seems the most popular story about honesty is nothing more than a sham.  

Religion isn’t shy about trying to convince us that in order to get control of our sin problem (we are saved you know—and sinning isn’t what we ought to be doing)—all we must do is somehow kill our desires.  It’s no wonder so many of us consider following Jesus more like living in a torture chamber than we do a daily celebration.  

 21-22 If such is the case, is the law, then, an anti-promise, a negation of God’s will for us? Not at all. Its purpose was to make obvious to everyone that we are, in ourselves, out of right relationship with God, and therefore to show us the futility of devising some religious system for getting by our own efforts what we can only get by waiting in faith for God to complete his promise. For if any kind of rule-keeping had power to create life in us, we would certainly have gotten it by this time.    (Galatians 3:21-22, The Message Bible)

Just as the law (I’ll add religion) was powerless to save us—so it is unable to give us a lick when it comes to living the Christian life.  All the law can do is point us to Jesus—it can’t empower us to follow him in a million life-times.  We can thank God for the law in that it painfully shows us our utter inadequacy, but we must not then turn around and attempt to live up to it’s standards in hopes that we ever will ever meet it’s demands.  To do so is to undermine the faith we placed in Jesus when we gave up trying to earn God’s favor—as if we ever could have.  Jesus bridged that chasm.

The big fat lie of religion is that is powerful enough to rescue us when all it does is hinder us, and in the end, it sucks the very life out of us when we put any stock in it.  Jesus—the author of liberty—is the only One we need to put our stock in.

debt free

The effort to repay God, in the ordinary way we pay creditors, would nullify grace and turn it into a business transaction.  If we see acts of obedience as installment payments, we make grace into a mortgage… Let us not say that grace creates debts; let us say that grace pays debts.

-John Piper (Future Grace)

 

Okay—are we done demanding God be fair yet?

John Piper calls it the debtor’s ethic and makes a powerful case for approaching God and his loving-kindness altogether differently than  many of us have been taught.  One of the traps of feeling like we deserve something so undeserved as forgiveness is the subsequent feelings of being somehow entitled to favorite pet sins as a sort of consolation for our good time—it’s a God will understand mentality which never fails to result in our engaging in a lifestyle or activities that don’t serve God, ourselves, or others well. 

When we approach God’s forgiveness or any of the benefits of his grace and mercy with an approach of anything other than a gift—we slip into approaching God as some big cosmic scale up in the sky and we somehow justify our giving him anything less than all of us (or worse yet—a measly 10%).  We are his, and everything we have was given to us by him if we remember rightly (aren’t we stewards rather than owners?).   We reason that it is plenty for us to give God six of the seven days within our week—I should get at least one day to have my time the reasoning goes.  A heart set free by true forgiveness says What mercy God has given me!—is there any sacrifice too great for me to give back to him?

Do you see the distinct difference?

The forgiveness we receive in Christ is a net result of the liberating grace of God.  Grace is all gift—no re-payment necessary.  And so it is with forgiveness since it is one of the fruits of grace after all.

1 What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.’ 4 Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. 5 And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, 6 just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: 7 ‘Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; 8 blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.’   (Romans 4:1-8, ESV)

Do we live in this kind of faith—a belief that we haven’t earned an ounce of the forgiveness that Jesus provided for us through his sinless life and by sacrificing his very life in our place?

Giving back to God is the response of a heart set free—paying him back isn’t.

Like it or not—we are debt free.

Case Closed

Your sins are erased
And they are no more
They’re out on the ocean floor…  ~Ocean Floor, Audio Adrenaline 

The harsh charges have been read: High Crimes Against Heaven.  The incriminating evidence has been plainly and painfully presented against you.  The many witnesses have marched forward.  The clear argument has passionately been made—the prosecution has spoken.  The defense has rested as it never got started—you didn’t have a prayer.  The jury has deliberated and rendered a verdict.

Eternal Sentence—with no possibility of parole. 

You didn’t stand a snowballs chance in Gehenna.

 13And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him (Colossians 2:13-15, ESV).

Jesus didn’t suffer and die with plans to forgive some of your sins.  He didn’t hang on a cross out in the scorching afternoon sun with crusted blood clinging on to every inch of his body in hopes to forgive most of your sins.  He didn’t withstand the ultimate humiliation and mockery so that every sin you have ever committed and will ever commit—except for your worst one—would be forgiven.

He paid for all of them.

Your case is closed—never to be re-opened.

forget fair

This evil is planted in all human hearts by nature: If God were willing to sell His grace, we would accept it more quickly and gladly than when He offers it for nothing.  ~Martin Luther

So if forgiveness is free and subsequently can’t be purchased for any price—just who is it that  gets the gift of forgiveness?  Do the worthy receive forgiveness?  Certainly not—there’s none of those.  And if there were what would they need forgiveness for?  Forgiveness is for sinners.  That must mean it’s the unworthy who get forgiven.  In many cases it is those most unworthy who get to go free with Jesus after all (a clumsy reading of the New Testament would suffice in making that case).  So, yes, the unworthy  recieve forgiveness.  But does everyone who is unworthy get forgiven?  That would mean we all get pardoned.  If that is the case, can we all just be extra bad and bank on being forgiven—right?  Not hardly. 

If you can be squeaky clean and still not be forgiven don’t think for a mili-second that you can be bad to the bone and slide by (let me  add that the Bible teaches that we are all “bad” in and of ourselves contrary to what 99% of us think about ourselves).  I may be one of a small number re-stating what the Bible says on this but it’s not going to stop me from saying it—God alone is good and any goodness we possess is from him.  End of story.

Just because you desperately need forgiveness doesn’t guarantee your receiving it.  I may need a new liver but just the fact that I need one doesn’t secure my recieving one.  The bible makes it clear that not all come to a saving knowledge of Jesus—not everyone has their sins forgiven.  We will be spared the eternal penalty for our sin—because we have been forgiven.  Basic I know—but it bears repeating.    This all goes back to the fact that we are forgiven and get to go to heaven based on nothing we did (i.e. the thief on the cross with his mountain of sin the size of Mt. Everest being fully forgiven).  

It all comes down to getting what we don’t deserve, not who sins less.  Not fair! we protest.  Re-consider before you jump off that cliff.

8 The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. 9 He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. 10 He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. 11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; 12 as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.  ~Psalm 103:8-12, ESV

Just imagine for one brief moment what you’d get if God were fair.  God doesn’t forgive us because he’s fair, he forgives us because he is full of grace.  If God were fair we’d all have a one way bus ticket to an eternal lake of fire.  The bible teaches that God is just, it doesn’t make a case for his fairness.  Are you scratching your head asking questions?  That might be a good thing if it’s not dandruff. 

We haven’t been forgiven by God because the world owes us or because God is fair or because we deserve it.