Free Costly Grace
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
So, as many of you know, I’m involved with a small group of Christians who work with me at Honda. We meet weekly and have a time of devotion and study and it’s really a great blessing in my life! What an encouragement, in today’s secular workplace, to have fellowship with over a dozen people that you work with who love Jesus and want to grow together to serve Him better! I’m also very grateful that some of them are joining us here tonight.
We have recently undertaken a topical study about discipleship. We want to learn to be better disciples of Christ so we really want to define what a disciple is, well. To guide our discussion and study, we’re using Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Cost of Discipleship, which is the source of my lesson tonight!
Costly Grace
Costly Grace
Our study last week was about this idea that Bonhoeffer proposes of “Costly Grace”. I was, at first, taken aback by this phrase, as I’m sure some of you may be. After all, we believe that our salvation is by grace alone and that we cannot contribute one bit to our salvation, the price is paid fully by Christ Jesus. As Paul says in Romans:
But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.
And this is absolutely true. However, while grace comes to the Christian free of charge, it has consequences that Bonhoeffer was trying to point to with his provocative claim of “Costly Grace”.
Consequences of Grace
Consequences of Grace
I was reminded while preparing for this of a guy I used to work with when I was an auto mechanic back in North Carolina. The shop foreman wanted to motivate the techs in the shop to finish our online training that was required by American Honda, so he had a drawing once a week of all the techs that had completed their training, the winner won $5. There was one guy in the shop, let’s call him Jim, whose name was drawn 3 or 4 times, but he refused to take the money. When asked why, Jim always said “They’re going to report it on my taxes, I’ll have to give the government an extra $20 come January because they’ll report it as a bonus!”
That reasoning always blew my mind. Jim refused to accept $100 because he would have to give $20 back later in taxes. JUST PUT $20 ASIDE JIM, YOU STILL GET A FREE $80!
This felt a lot to me like the kind of costly grace Bonhoeffer referred to. The techs who accepted the money didn’t have to give anything for the $100, but it did have some consequences for them come tax time! Accepting something free does sometimes prompt a response from us.
Jesus’ Warnings
Jesus’ Warnings
Jesus often warned those who wished to follow Him of the cost that would incur, such as two people described in Matthew. One is described as a “scribe”, and the other as a “disciple”, meaning he was likely already following Jesus.
Matthew 19:
Now when Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. And a scribe came up and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Another of the disciples said to him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.”
To follow Jesus would cost these two men, not because they had to earn their position with Him, but because encountering Jesus absolutely required a response.
To put it simply, man chose to rebel against God, creating a permanent rift between us and Him. God chose to continually work in the lives of people to bring us closer and closer to Him. Ultimately, God sent His only Son to live among us, to suffer with us, to be tempted with us, and ultimately to be tortured and killed by us so that He might accept our punishment on our behalf. He rose from the dead, conquering the grip that death had held over humanity for generations, and He ascended triumphantly to heaven to prepare for us a place in His Father’s house.
If we acknowledge these things are true and choose to be baptized as Jesus taught, which is ALL that we are told is needed to be saved, can our lives possibly be the same? If I accept these things are true, can I continue living my life putting my wants and desires first? If I believe that Jesus paid a terrible price that I NEVER could to save me from myself what else can I do but commit everything I have to Him for the rest of my life?
Application
Application
Paul’s Observation
Paul’s Observation
Paul put it this way to the church in Corinth:
As many of you know, God has done much more for me than forgive my sins. He also saw me through a time when my sin brought my plans for my life crashing down around. I was kicked out of my first college as a sophomore and returned in shame to my parent’s house, my Army scholarship, law school future, college plans in ruins. Thankfully by the time all of this played out I had chosen to put my faith in God, and I decided then to commit my life to His plan! He led me back to college,
From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
2 Corinthians 5:16-
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
If we are a new creation, how can we continue to behave the same way that the previous creation behaved? How can I stay stuck in the same sins, the sins of placing my success over my pursuit of Christ, of placing the desires of my flesh over the dignity of women made in the image of God, of placing a good time on a Friday night before honoring the one who made me new and whole?
Since the reformation, Christians have steadfastly preached that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone, shunning the idea of works from our doctrine of salvation. This is good and true and biblical! However, I caution us against missing the importance of good works in the life of the saved Christian!
What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Like Bryant preached on this morning, regarding the Israelites following Joshua into the promised land and delivering their enemies to them, God has many great things to accomplish among His creation, and He uses His people to do them! However, if our complacency that “our salvation comes by our faith not our works” then we will not be given amazing things to do in God’s kingdom! Our brother Phil has STOOD after being crushed in his accident! Our children have been SAVED by grace through faith in baptism! Every day those in our congregation are given opportunities to share the Gospel to the hurting people around them! We have brought food to the hungry, clothes to the unclothed, and truth to the lost! Let us NEVER stop pursuing the cost, the consequences, the unstoppable result of the grace we have received!
What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?