Grace is Greater than our Guilt

Introduction: In the introduction to Grace is Greater, Idleman shares a few interesting words that have been recently added to the dictionary—phonesia, disconfect, and blamestorming. Unlike these words, “grace” is a term we’ve heard countless times. This brings with it a danger. “The word grace is so common it doesn’t feel very amazing” (14). This three-week series will take time to dig into what grace actually means, versus what we think it means. God’s grace is more beautiful, freeing, and altogether greater than we could ever imagine.

In order to really grasp grace, we need to explore another word we have heard too often, “sin.”

6-Our Guilt is Gross, But Grace is Gorgeous.

When we talk about sin, it is not something most of us would like to talk about. It is Gross, or we minimize it, and say it is not too bad, we justify it we try to make our own sin seem not as bad as it is, or we know it is bad and we try to hide it and it weighs heavy on us.

Explanation: “Our ability to appreciate grace is in direct correlation to the degree to which we acknowledge our need for it”

Romans 3:23–24 NIV

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

Couple whose wife became a follower of Jesus, and he was getting upset about it. We sat in a small room, and I began to tell him the Good News of the gospel. I began with and made the point that everyone has sinned and fallen short of God’s standard. Immediately he became defensive and said, “I’m not that bad. Most people would consider me a good man.” He thought it unfair to be called a sinner and be judged by “God’s standard.” “How fair is it to set a standard that no one can meet and then say everyone is a sinner?” he continued. “It’s like setting up a target that’s out of range and then blaming the shooter for not being able to hit it.” I started my attempt at a theological explanation of why we were sinners. I was going to begin with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and talk about how sin entered the world. I think he would have been impressed with some of the terms I was going to use to explain how we have rebelled against God. But before I had a chance to talk about imputation or ancestral sin, his wife interrupted me and asked if she could say something. She didn’t wait for my permission. She turned toward her husband and said, “Do you think it’s OK to get drunk and yell at your spouse? Do you think it’s OK to lie about your sales numbers? Do you think it’s OK to tell your grandson you’ll be at his game and then not show up?” And she asked three or four more personal questions that were clearly indicting. His answers to these questions were obvious. Then she said, “You say it’s not fair to be held to God’s standard, but you fall short of your own standards.” I had never thought of it that way. We may get defensive when a preacher calls us a sinner—but forget about God’s standard, we can’t even meet our own standard.

We sat in a small room, and I began to tell him the Good News of the gospel. I began with and made the point that everyone has sinned and fallen short of God’s standard. Immediately he became defensive and said, “I’m not that bad. Most people would consider me a good man.” He thought it unfair to be called a sinner and be judged by “God’s standard.” “How fair is it to set a standard that no one can meet and then say everyone is a sinner?” he continued. “It’s like setting up a target that’s out of range and then blaming the shooter for not being able to hit it.” I started my attempt at a theological explanation of why we were sinners. I was going to begin with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and talk about how sin entered the world. I think he would have been impressed with some of the terms I was going to use to explain how we have rebelled against God. But before I had a chance to talk about imputation or ancestral sin, his wife interrupted me and asked if she could say something. She didn’t wait for my permission. She turned toward her husband and said, “Do you think it’s OK to get drunk and yell at your spouse? Do you think it’s OK to lie about your sales numbers? Do you think it’s OK to tell your grandson you’ll be at his game and then not show up?” And she asked three or four more personal questions that were clearly indicting. His answers to these questions were obvious. Then she said, “You say it’s not fair to be held to God’s standard, but you fall short of your own standards.” I had never thought of it that way. We may get defensive when a preacher calls us a sinner—but forget about God’s standard, we can’t even meet our own standard.

Idleman, Kyle. Grace Is Greater: God's Plan to Overcome Your Past, Redeem Your Pain, and Rewrite Your Story (p. 25). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Idleman, Kyle. Grace Is Greater: God's Plan to Overcome Your Past, Redeem Your Pain, and Rewrite Your Story (p. 25). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

We minimize by - comparing ourselves to others, or trying to weigh the good against the bad.

Idleman, Kyle. Grace Is Greater: God's Plan to Overcome Your Past, Redeem Your Pain, and Rewrite Your Story (pp. 24-25). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Application: “We work hard at convincing ourselves and others we’re not that bad, but the truth is we are worse than we ever imagined. The more you push back on that, the more you push back on experiencing God’s grace”

9-Grace is more Beautiful than our Brokenness.

The Story of the Woman at the well -

Explanation: Like we see in the story of the woman at the well, “When God’s grace and mercy collide with our shame and guilt, it’s messy but it’s beautiful. Jesus knows everything you ever did, but he wants to make sure you know that his grace is greater” (47).

God’s love and a German soldier

It was 1945, World War II had drawn to a close, and a young man sat broken inside a POW camp. He had been a reluctant soldier in Hitler’s army and here, inside a prison in Scotland, he had months to contemplate what had been and what was to come. The cities of his homeland had been reduced to rubble and the people impoverished. His sleep was filled with repeating nightmares in which the terrors of warfare were lived over and over.

And then came what was for me the worst of all. In September 1945, in camp 22 in Scotland, we were confronted with pictures of Belsen and Auschwitz. They were pinned up in one of the huts, without comment… Slowly and inexorably the truth filtered into our awareness, and we saw ourselves mirrored in the eyes of the Nazi victims. Was this what we had fought for? Had my generation, as the last, been driven to our deaths so that the concentration camp murderers could go on killing, and Hitler could live a few months longer?… The depression over the wartime destruction and a captivity without any apparent end was exacerbated by feelings of profound shame and having to share in this disgrace. That was undoubtedly the hardest thing, a stranglehold that choked us.

An unshakeable shame saturated his being and the only future he could see stretching out before him was one that filled him with despair. Yet it was in the midst of this shame and despair that God found him. A visiting chaplain gave the soldier a Bible and, with little else to do, he began reading it. In the lament Psalms he heard resonant voices, the agony of people who felt God had abandoned them. In the story of Christ crucified he encountered a God who knew what it was to experience suffering, abandonment, and shame. Feeling utterly forsaken himself, the German soldier found a friend in the One who cried “my God my God why have you forsaken me”.

In 1947 he was given permission to attend a Christian conference that brought together young people from across the world. The Dutch participants asked to meet with the German POWs who had fought in the Netherlands. The young soldier was one of them. He went to the meeting full of fear, guilt and shame, feelings that intensified as the Dutch Christians spoke of the pain Hitler and his allies had inflicted, of the dread the Gestapo bred in their hearts, of the family and friends they had lost, of the disruption and damage to their communities. Yet the Dutch Christians didn’t speak out of a spirit of vindictiveness, but came to offer forgiveness. It was completely unexpected. These Dutch Christians embodied the love the German soldier had read about in the story of Christ and it turned his life upside down. He discovered despite all that had passed “God looked on us with ‘the shining eyes’ of his eternal joy”, that there was hope for the future.

That German soldier was Juergen Moltmann, who would go on to become one of the greatest theologians of the twentieth century. Years later, with the message of the loving, crucified God still indelibly printed on his heart, he penned these beautiful words.

But the ultimate reason for our hope is not to be found at all in what we want, wish for and wait for; the ultimate reason is that we are wanted and wished for and waited for. What is it that awaits us? Does anything await us at all, or are we alone? Whenever we base our hope on trust in the divine mystery, we feel deep down in our hearts: there is someone who is waiting for you, who is hoping for you, who believes in you. We are waited for as the prodigal son in the parable is waited for by his father. We are accepted and received, as a mother takes her children into her arms and comforts them. God is our last hope because we are God’s first love.

Source: Moltmann’s writings. Quotes from The Source of Life.The Holy Spirit and the Theology of Life. Fortress Press 1977

Application: “The worst thing that could happen is that you spend your life trying to outrun God because you think he’s chasing you to collect what you owe—when he’s really chasing you to give you what you could never afford” (45).

“The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.” - Tim Keller

Grace is more Beautiful than our Brokenness because...

10-Grace Redeems our Remorse.

Tell the Story of Peter being restored by Jesus ().

Explanation: As this passage illustrates, “Jesus is telling Peter that he doesn’t have to be imprisoned by his regrets. Jesus still has a great plan for Peter. Grace has the power to redeem regret” (61).

Illustration: On pages 49-50 and 61-62, Idleman talks of punching a hole in a bathroom door.

The story of the double-reversing reversal journal entry

What regrets do we try to hide, thinking they are unforgiveable?

Simply put, regret is feeling bad about something you have or haven’t done, while shame is feeling bad about who you are or how you think you’re perceived by God and others.

Idleman, Kyle. Grace Is Greater: God's Plan to Overcome Your Past, Redeem Your Pain, and Rewrite Your Story (pp. 51-52). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Idleman, Kyle. Grace Is Greater: God's Plan to Overcome Your Past, Redeem Your Pain, and Rewrite Your Story (pp. 51-52). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Application: “Our regrets should lead to remorse. That’s the right response when we are confronted with our sin. God’s grace won’t leave you there, but that’s where God’s grace will most often find you” (57).

Conclusion: Bono’s song

Grace, she takes the blame She carries the shame Removes the stains It could be her name

Grace, it’s the name for a girl It’s also a thought that changed the world And when she walks on the street You can hear the strings Grace finds goodness in everything.

Grace, she’s got the walk, Not a ramp or on chalk She’s got the time to talk She travels outside of karma She travels outside of karma When she goes to work You can hear her strings Grace finds beauty in everything.

Grace, she carries a world on her hips No champagne flute for her lips No twirls or skips between her fingertips She carries a pearl in perfect condition

What once was hurt What once was friction What left a mark No longer stings Because Grace makes beauty Out of ugly things.

Grace makes beauty out of ugly things.