Eyes healed by grace see through scandal to people

Romans 3

In times past many of us here today would have been viewed with suspicion in many of our churches.

Only the upright, respectable christian who hadn’t publically done anything remotely scandalous was welcome.

Wild clothing, financial difficulties, divorce, children who had gone off the rails, men wearing earings, women wearing nose rings, working for some organisations, being single after your mid 20s, having certain political views, having a glass of wine with your meal, dancing.

All of these things and more meant that you could be ostracised.

Judgement meant that you had to fit in the box and in some places that box was very small.

But if you had at one time been a non christian your life could have been completely reprobate and yet you would be accepted if you were seen to have completely repented and stepped inside the box.

Now maybe I am exagerating a bit, but in reality I have seen and heard all of these things judged at one time or another in churches.

Legalism and judgement have been rife in some places.

But grace is different.

Grace recognises that we are all sinners and it is only through Christ that we are made clean in God’s sight.

Romans 3:21–26 NLT

21 But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. 22 We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are. 23 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. 24 Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. 25 For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, 26 for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.

But one of the challenges we have to face is in what ways do we do the same thing.

Who do we ostracise in the modern church?

Our list is different and in many ways includes the sort of things that would have never been seen publically in churches years ago.

How do we treat the mentally ill, the homosexual, the person who describes themselves as transgender, the person who has been in jail for a crime of violence or embezzlement or fraud, the person addicted to drugs or alcohol, the person who has had an affair, the prostitute, the person who commits domestic violence or even those who abuse children.

Loving the unlovely, the outcast and the ostracized has many challenges, legalism and judgement are not the way of grace, but neither is excuse.

Let’s be clear upfront, those who harm others, especially children and the vulnerable can never again be trusted.

There has to be legal consequences, accountability and genuine repentence before such a person can again have any place in a Christian community.

Then safeguards must be put in place and maintianed.

This may include not being allowed to attend services and activities where children are present.

Being escorted at all times and only being part of a very limited social circle and specific activities.

In one congregation we took on they failed to tell me about the son of a very respectable couple in the church.

I wasn’t impressed when I found out that this young man was about to be released from prison and had been convicted of indecent assult of a child.

This is the sort of thing that would have been helpful to know.

Now his was one of those cases where his developmental issues and the subsequent rejection by all the girls his age in the entire community meant that you could see how this had happened, but it still didn’t excuse his behaviour.

I could have simply rejected him and insisted the church had nothing to do with him.

Especially as there was a far bit of heat in the local community that he was being released after many years in prison.

Or I could work through the denominations persons of concern process with him and with the approval of the relevant authorities find a way for him to be included.

In the end he was allowed to attend certain activities, whilst escorted by a select group of people but he was never to be on the premises when children could be present.

Nor could he have contact with families other than those on the select list.

His parents were very appreciative, corrective services were very satisfied, grace was shown and safeguards were put in place to protect the vulnerable.

But what about all the other things I have listed?

Do we see the scandal or do we see the person.

The person that Jesus willingly died for.

The person who is just like us in need of God’s grace?

These are difficult issues, accepting the person can not mean we accept and endorse the sin.

But how do we demonstrate the same grace that has been extended to us.

How do we love the person who says they are transgender?

How do we love the person struggling with addiction?

How do we love the person who has been unfaithful?

How do we love the person released from jail?

How do we love the person who is same sex attracted?

How do we love the person in the adult industry?

Increasingly these are things we have to address.

All of these people have faced incredible rejection and judgement, for most of them they have little experience of grace.

What does grace look like to the scandalous people of our society?

What does grace look like to those the church has historically ostracised?

I think demonstrating grace to the scandalous people of our society looks a little like this.

I remember a couple of encounters that occured during my time as Associate Pastor for Youth at Islington in Newcastle.

And I intentionally have named the church because these are examples of how some members of the congregation got things right.

An elderly deacon, an obviously transgender man and a cup of tea in fine china.

Imagine the steps of an old brick church in a particularly rough part of town.

On these steps are one of the strangest sights you could ever expect to see at the front of one of the most conservative churches in the country over 20 years ago.

An elderly deacon, neatly dressed standing next to a unshaven man in a short dress and heels holding a fine china cup and saucer of hot tea.

It wasn’t the place where you would normally expect to see this, except that the church was located in what had become the red light district of a city going through incredible change.

How did this happen?

A young newly married couple had commenced a ministry to the local street workers in the area.

They would go out with a hot pot of soup in the cold evenings of Newcastle and simply serve the women and men waiting on the street for business.

Word had got around that these people really cared and so occassionally those connected with this part of society would turn up at the doors of the church on a Sunday looking for them when they were going through a particularly rough time.

This man was not doing well, he was looking for this young couple because he needed help.

His situation was obviously tragic, but this was a morning when that young couple were away.

To his great credit the deacon at the door that day saw only a person in need.

He offered and then got a cup of tea for the person in need, he invited them in, they didn’t want to come in that was a step to far.

But they gladly accepted the cup of tea and talked on the steps for quite some time.

Now I don’t know the details of the conversation, but I do know they were listened to by a man who had no training, no experience in this area, just simply the love of Jesus for a person in distress.

Details were passed onto the young couple doing the street ministry.

Afterwards the deacon said to me, “Stephen that was the ugliest woman I ever met! I wasn’t sure what to do so I offered them a cup of tea and I didn’t know what to call them and I didn’t want to cause offense so I just called them mate, I hope I did the right thing”

He listened, he made them welcome, he showed love to a person in need to the best of his ability.

I think he did the right thing.

This is what grace looks like to the scandalous people of our society.

A prim and proper mother of a teenage girl, a kitchen and a prostitute.

On another occassion I was walking through the kitchen of the church and I came across one of the mums of one of the young teenage girls in the youth group.

She was leaning on a kitchen bench talking to a young woman I had never met who was sitting on the oppossite kitchen bench in tears holding a mug of coffee.

This young woman was talking about her love for her kids and how she had to get of drugs for their sake, but she kept on being lured back in because of the work she was doing on the streets.

She was looking for a place to detox as there was no room in any facility anywhere in the region.

I believe in her case the young couple runing the street ministry took her in and allowed her to detox in their own home.

The committment of the young couple was amazing.

But what struck me about that morning was the mother who was welcoming and showing love to the woman in need.

She was the last person I expected to act this way.

Yet here she was, a mother who I saw as a bit prim and proper, especially when it came to her daughter and youth group issues, showing love to a woman invovled in prostitution and drugs.

This is what grace looks like to the scandalous people of our society.

Principles of Grace

Eyes healed by grace see through scandal to people.

That is what Jesus demonstrated in John 8: 1-11 where we read of the woman caught in adultry.

Now we could take a detailed look at the culture of the time, the Old Testament law.

The almost certain fact that this poor woman had been set up, because the law stated both the man and the woman should be stoned to death.

Yet the man was no where to be seen!

And the passage is clear, “caught in the act”

We could make a great deal about how the religious teachers were seeking to trap Jesus.

We could even speculate as to what jesus wrote int eh dust with his finger.

And all these things are important and worth examining.

But two simple facts remain.

Firstly Jesus pointed out to the crowd that they were no better than she in God’s sight, they had all sinned.

Secondly he didn’t condem her, instead he called her into a new and better life.

I believe that when we look at the ministry of Jesus and his approach to people, especially people to whom he showed mercy, there is this common pattern.

The condition of all humanity as equally guilty and in need before God is pointed out and then the call to a new and better life is offered.

This is important for us to really grasp.

The scandalous people of our society see grace when they understand that we see ourselves as just like them.

People in need of God’s mercy just as much as they are.

The scandalous people of our society see grace when they are offered a new and better way.

Instead of exclusion we need to be offering ourselves as examples of how God has shown mercy to a person in desperate need.

Instead of judgement we need to be offering ourselves as examples of how God has worked to open a new and better way.

Ephesians 2:8–10 NLT

8 God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. 10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

Epehsians 2: 8-10 is very clear, it is by God’s grace, there is nothing we can do to earn God’s favour.

It is not of our own merit, nor because we have earnt it, but simply because of God’s grace.

The result is we are as verse 10 tells us a new creation in Christ.

Created to do good works.

Now there is a deliberate interaction between the good things or good works of verse 9 that can not earn our salvation.

That we are God’s workmanship or masterpiece in verse 10.

And then the good works that he planned for us to do because we are a new creation.

Doing good does not earn our salvation but doing good is an essential quality of new life.

Eyes healed by grace see through scandal to people

Eyes healed by grace look for the opportunity to do good to those in need.

Not because it earns us a place in heaven, not because it does us good, although it is good for us to do these things.

Eyes healed by grace do good because it is an essential quality of who we are in Christ.

So let’s as Titus 2:14 and Colossians 1:10 tell us be totally committed to doing good deeds and producing every kind of good fruit.

For that is the way of grace.