God is Holy, I am an Ass

There’s been a theme in my life this week that began to climax in response to this morning’s sermon and then a question on Facebook crystallized the theme.  The theme is this:  “I am very often an [insert explicative insult here: e.g., jerk, ass, etc. ].”  I like to think I try very hard not to be, but when it comes down to it, there are simply times when I act in a way that afterwards I am not proud of at all, if I were to even think of it.  Why is that?  I mean, I try to be considerate of others, be unselfish and all those “love others” type things but I find I am actually pretty poor at doing even some of the simplest acts of goodness, regardless of being a professing Christian for 29 years.  No amount of Bible *knowledge* or even life experience makes it easier…. it’s more than that.

I think Isaiah said it best in Isaiah 6:5 after seeing the face of God and beginning to understand the depths of God’s holiness and his own sinfulness, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.”  Compared with God, we, even the most mature and “spiritually holy” among us are still only acting out a holiness that is but a dim shadow of the holiness of God the father.  And even that holiness we demonstrate, we do so by the very spirit and grace of God.  We are made complete not by our own strength and pious actions, but by His spirit within us.  God proclaimed his intent to do this 2500 years ago in Ezekiel 36:27 when he declared his intent to renew the covenant with his people, “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.”

Then what happens?  I have this wonderful new heart placed within me by the Creator of the universe himself.  I did nothing to deserve it.  (In fact, in Romans chapters 1-3 the Apostle Paul makes the case that no one deserves it or even sought after God!)  So I am given this free gift of grace, a new heart, the power to be transformed and renewed in the spirit and what do I end up doing with it?  I use it as an excuse to cover up the fact that I can *still* be an ass.  I am taking the golden key that I have been given to the kingdom and I am trying to use it to poke out my brother’s eye.

I believe that God uses circumstances and events in our lives to remind us of the critical aspects of his grace.  There is a tension our relationship with God through Christ that must be maintained.  I do not mean a bad or stressful tension, and one still must be able to “rest in the Lord”, but this is a tension of the now and not yet, the fact that while we are saved by grace, we are not perfect, while Christ has promised to return, he has not yet done so.  There is a tension in this period of the Church’s history.  And there are multiple aspects to that tension.  If your life as a Christian in this world, if your doctrine or your relationships with the world and the people in it ever begin to lack tension, review your relation with God to see if the right tension is there, because until the renewal of Creation Christians will live in tension with the world around them and even in relation to God himself.

So let me speak of the “strings of grace”.  If grace, through the blood of Christ is the instrument that God uses to restore us to a right relationship with him, then there are some aspects to that instrument that are very important for us to understand and each is an expression of a sort of tension or dichotomy.  (Now this is not a perfect metaphor for grace, nor does it express the whole aspect of grace, but it is one way to think of it.)  And it then makes perfect sense ot think that these tensions need to be maintained and that when the string gets lose, God needs to do something to speak into our lives an tighten the string again.  He does it not to injure us, but to keep us “in tune”, in a right relationship with him.

So here are my “Six Strings” or tensions that I feel most strongly in the message of grace to me.  There may be more (if you have one you would like me to blog about email me!), but here’s where we can start.

• The Now-and-not-yet nature of Grace:  I am a new Creation in Christ – yet I still sin
• The Price of Grace: I do not deserve grace, I was worthless – I was bought with the precious blood of Christ
• The mechanism of Grace: I am saved by grace – I am called to demonstrate obedience and holiness (works)
• The Plan of Grace: God’s sovereignty – Man’s free will/choice
• The Sharing of Grace: God’s Grace and Redemption – God’s Law & Coming Judgment
• The Vehicle of Grace: Individual/Personal redemption – The Church as the People of God

So that said, let me leave this as an introduction, a teaser if you will for some blogs about the “Strings of Grace.”  Because I think the ideas while good will require a little more time in the oven, so I can make sure what I have to share with you are not just my thoughts, but the words of grace spoken into the needs of humankind.

So am I an ass?  Yes, at times, though by the grace of God and his Spirit those times are fewer and farther between (in other words, yes, I used to be worse ?).  And when I forget that I am one, God uses people to point that out to me in sometimes rather harsh ways… But more about then when we seek to tighten the first string…

Until then, may God grace you with his Shalom.