Following Judah's Lion: God's Grace Revealed

Following Judah's Lion: God's Grace Revealed

Monday, September 03, 2012

God's Grace Revealed

GOD'S GRACE REVEALED

Who can describe the grace of God? Who can ascribe words sufficient to reveal an understanding of that which is too deep to completely understand and passes all understanding? Who among us who have been baptized into Christ through His grace can step forward and pretend to explain it? Oh yes we can mumble some words about undeserved favor but they are embarrassingly insufficient. The grace of God is the redemptive mountain way too high for anyone to climb, so God gave it to us.

Who can speak words that describe that which is so lofty and so sacred that the human mind buckles under its weight? I can never convey how utterly wicked I was before His grace rescued me. Do these words seem foreign to be coming from an old man? Do they seem like they belong to a youth praise gathering? But then you do not understand because I am closer to seeing Him than those young people, and I refuse to let their lips praise Him so intimately while my lips recite some tired mantras or well worn phrases. How can I be embarrassed or retain some decorum when He died for me publicly, almost naked, and covered in His own blood?

Can we not stop and let that sink into our hearts so deeply that words become wind and His love overwhelms us? God, the Creator of all that is, died for me. Do I even really understand that? I do not fully understand it but I seek to fully embrace it. Should I apologize because this post seems a diversion from many posts about this or that? Should I apologize because the Spirit fills me with the breath of worship that I cannot summon in my own strength? And when I weep before my keyboard, does that mean I am weak?

Oh how we seem so satisfied with doctrinal knowledge or a fleeting thought about some spiritual issue? But how often do we press and press just to get a glimpse, a moment of His glorious presence? I know, we are in a hurry and this kind of talk belongs to our charismatic friends. But if that is what you believe you are standing still. Cast your gaze back and remember how you first came to know Him. Think about the grace which pulled you out of the dunghill and set your feet on the solid Rock. Has it grown old? Is that now for children and not for mature believers?

But will you feel embarrassed when you bow before Him on that day? And must you wait for that day, or are all days worthy of His praise? We were not gifted by His grace for a season…we have been clothed in His grace forever. When we think on that we must be permeated with awe…with a sacred sense of awe and wonder. Why…how…why…? But although these things might remain a mystery here and now, we do know Who and with that we are made whole. And it is Him and Him alone to which we raise our hearts and voices.

Grace is pain, grace is suffering, grace is violence, grace is thorns, grace is nails, grace is mocking, grace is a spear, grace is sweat, grace is wounds, grace is very, very bloody. Away with all this antiseptic grace which can be claimed with a pathetic mumble of a few words or a church membership. Turn away from this grace which attempts to use His sacrifice for selfish reasons. Let us recoil of the religion which shapes His blood into a human design for success. Never let us embrace a doctrine of grace with our minds while we guard our hearts so as not to let anything out of the ordinary seep out. Away with it all!

Let us turn from all those and let us turn and face Him with all that within us lies. He is glorious beyond words and His grace has swept us into an eternal kingdom that has Him as its King. Deserve it? Oh please, we deserved hell and more. As Spurgeon once observed, we were not some tepid sinners who desired to do right. No, we were God’s enemies craftily running to disobey Him in any way that we thought would meet our own fallen desires. Yes, there we stood, guilty before Him and without hope in this world.

What would God do to us? He would be most justified to destroy us forever and send us without hope to a death worse than earthly death. That would have been our justifiable destination. And placing our hands over our faces we wait for His hand of judgment to fall. But what is that we hear? “Fear not”, says the angelic hosts lighting the ground that feeds sheep. “For unto you…”. Oh no, it cannot be!? For me? God has remembered me? “For unto you is born this day in the city of David…”.What? A new human ruler that would deliver Israel? A magnanimous ruler of men?

“Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.”

Oh my soul. Shall we run to see Him as He trounces His enemies and ascends upon a throne? But wait, what was that the angels said?

“And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”

A baby!? The Messiah has come as a baby? And He lays in a manger? What kind of love is this, and what kind of grace lives in that manger? Instead of lands and gold and precious jewels, God has given to us a baby?

Yes, we deserved death and yet we were given a child. And this child would one day lay down His life for us all. The repulsive scene at Golgotha would be why this child has come. Force yourself to look upon that face covered in spittle and blood. Go ahead, look fully at that mangled visage. Swelled beyond recognition and fresh from the unblocked punches of sinful men, He can barely see. And yet he lurches His chest and through bleeding lips He says, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” It is almost unbearable. Oh yes, he asks for forgiveness for such sinners like you and me who find it difficult to forgive someone who buts into a grocery store line.

What kind of forgiveness is that, and who can know it? Have you moved on to bigger and better doctrines? Do you enjoy these doctrinal games of badminton? Does the Hebrew and Greek thrill you soul? May I suggest a pilgrimage back to the blood soaked ground at Calvary? May I suggest that while you look at that battered frame you take a good, long look. For in that sunken and beaten frame covered in a crimson hue, is you. There you are in all your wickedness and sin. He had no sin of His own, and yet your sin was placed upon Him. How can you look at that with eyes as dry as if you were looking at a street sign? Do you not realize what has happened? He was punched, He was whipped, He was spit upon, He was impaled upon those Roman planks, He was mocked, but it should have been you. It all should have been you and me.

I know, a quaint and familiar Sunday School story, a little more graphic, but the same story nonetheless. If that is what satisfies your heart, then you may continue as you are and leave as you came. But if God’s Spirit has pulled the veil back a little further than before, then you cannot remain as you are. You have been ushered into what grace really means. And if you have seen His broken body, then you must be broken before Him. The grace of God is not some cold doctrine which can be recited like a Shakespeare soliloquy or the Pledge of Allegiance. If it does not burn within your heart than you are embracing a definition and not His grace. The grace of God is Jesus, crucified and resurrected. And that came purchased with an unfathomable price. But we are called to believe, just believe. That, my friends, is grace beyond words. Selah.