Dear Redeemer Family,
Last week I wrote about how essential it is for us to be consistent in our presence to the Lord and to each other. Today, I’d like to balance out the equation. Actually, balance isn’t quite the right word, is it? We don’t need a little bit of effort and a little bit of grace in order to thrive, we need 100% of both.
You see, most of us naturally default to one of three different perspectives:
It’s All On Me: There is a direct, one-to-one causation between my effort and my relationship with God. What I put in is what I get out.
God & I Are A Team: I’ll give following Jesus my best shot, and if the Gospel is true, then God’s grace will make up the difference between what I can do and what the Lord requires.
It’s All On God: The Gospel means God gives me grace and all I do is passively receive it. Therefore, my personal effort doesn’t matter. Effort is anti-gospel.
Strange as it might sound, each one of these perspectives is unbiblical. The story of scripture is not the story of human efforts to climb the mountain to reach God at the top. Nor is it the story of a partnership where humanity does a little and God does the rest. Nor is it the story of a God who does everything while humans passively observe and receive.
No, the Holy Scriptures tell a different sort of story in which people have very real agency and yet all of their acts take place within a Covenant of Grace from a loving God who upholds and sustains them.
Metaphor #1: Rowing the English Channel
Imagine attempting to row a boat across the English Channel. How much effort would that take? Just about everything you’ve got right? Now, how hard do you have to work to make your boat float? Actually, you don’t have to do anything at all to make that happen. The boat is like grace, it buoys you up so that you won’t sink. To move forward, you don’t need a little boat and a little rowing, you need all the boat and all the rowing!
Metaphor #2: Marriage
Imagine you are married to a wonderful spouse. Will planning creative date nights, romantic get-a-aways, doing the dishes, and giving thoughtful gifts make you more married? Of course not! Marriage is a covenant you are either in or not. Once you’re in, your efforts matter - they will help the marriage relationship to flourish. You don’t need a little marriage and a little romantic gesture, you need to be all in on the marriage and all in on the effort!
Metaphor #3: Son-or-Daughter-Ship
Imagine you are a child with loving parents. Will obeying your parents make you more of their child? Make you more of a son or daughter? Of course not. By virtue of your birth into the family, you are in. Now, of course your efforts and obedience to respect and honor your parents matter a lot. They will determine a lot about the ups and downs of that relationship! You don’t need a little child-status and a little obedience. You need to be 100% a son or daughter and then give 100% honor and respect.
Grace is like the boat, like the marriage covenant, like the child-status. Grace floats you, it sustains you, it holds you, it binds you, it keeps you. God’s grace is like the ground under your feet. His grace is like the air you breathe. The grace of God, given because of the shed blood of Jesus, now flows in your veins. You, my friend, are immersed in a deluge of grace.
This is why Christian effort in all things is physically and emotionally tiring, but not emotionally or spiritually stressful.
The “It’s All On Me” Person.
Q. Do we participate in Sunday worship, Small Group fellowship, acts of justice and mercy, financial generosity, prayer, Bible reading, and spiritual disciplines in order to create, sustain, and keep our relationship with God?
A. Of course not. God’s grace precedes all our efforts and is not dependent on our efforts. Our hard work takes place within the context of God’s immersive grace.
The “God-and-I-Are-A-Team” Person
Q. Do we try our best at all these things and, then once we’ve run out of steam, thank God that he makes up the difference?
A. This is treating God like the remainder in a bizarre math equation. In some ways, this is the most dangerous way to think. Thinking that you only need a little bit of God’s grace is worse than thinking you don’t need God's grace at all. Why? Because if you’re the kind of person that thinks you don’t need any grace, life will crush that idea out of you. You’ll fail spectacularly and realize you need all of God’s grace. Some people spend their whole lives thinking of themselves as 70% righteous and, therefore, thinking they need about 30% of God in their lives to make up the difference.
The “It’s All On God” Person
Q. Do we resist conversations about effort because God’s grace eliminates the need for us to try hard?
A. This would be a foreign concept to Moses, David, Ruth, Isaiah, Mary Magdalene, Paul, and especially to Jesus himself. All of these men and women tremendously and strenuously exerted themselves in the pursuit of following God’s call. Not once would they have thought, “I probably shouldn’t try too hard, otherwise I won’t be living in God’s grace.”
So church family, with Labor Day behind us and the Fall semester in front of us. Let’s immerse ourselves in the deluge that is God’s grace to us. Let’s be free, light, and cheerful - even as we take up hard things. Even as we give ourselves away in love to one another and to our neighbors.
You are in the ark of the Church, you won’t sink.
You are in the Bride of Christ, Jesus the groom will never divorce you.
You are an adopted child of God, your Heavenly Father will never disown you.
Grace surrounds you, covers you, flows in and through you, and permeates all you do.
In the Father’s love,
