Rights – Grace- The Foundation – Part 3
In the last installment about Rights, I mentioned that the only right we’ve earned from God was the right to go straight to Hell for eternity. In this installment, I would like to lay a groundwork for the context of rights spoken of in the Bible. In a word, that context is all about grace.
Years ago, during a softball game, I had just thrown a guy out at first base for the third out of the inning when running toward the dugout our center-fielder in passing me said, “Isn’t God’s grace wonderful?” I said, “Yes, isn’t it?” I sounded like I understood what he meant, and I agreed, but you know what? I had no idea what he was getting at. I knew that I had been saved by grace. I knew that God sent Jesus to die for my sins by grace. And I was going to spend eternity with God, by grace. But I had no idea what throwing a guy out at first base had to do with anything.
At the time, I was working at a Christian bookstore, so I got out the book catalogs and looked for a book about Grace. I found one called Grace and decided I should start there. That was many years ago, but here’s what I came away with, the part that stuck. Everything is connected to and caused by grace. I know! That sounds crazy! But think about it, what makes your heart beat? What causes your mind to tell your body to walk down the street and your brain says, “great idea, okay, left foot move” and it does. What causes you to think at all? Where does that come from?
In our town, there is a lot of parallel parking. I’ve gotten to where I can pull up next to the car in front of an empty spot and whip into the space with barely a foot in front and a foot in back of me, without hitting either as I pull in. Wow! Grace! Not only that but every time I start downtown, I pray that God will give me a parking place and you know what? Bam! An empty one pops up right in front of my office. This morning, I parked across the street, but that was okay because we have to move every three hours and I needed to pick up some laundry, which happened to be in the direction of the parking spots across the street. And then, when I came out to move my car, I just pulled out, drove the block to the laundry and guess what? There was an empty space there waiting for me. Smiling at me. Saying, “brother, even parking spaces are grace-filled.”
I know what you’re thinking, but think a little differently, why do you breath? Why does your heart beat? Why can you think, read, talk, hear, move? Its because God loves you and created you to be able to do these things. And he didn’t owe it to you. In fact, as I pointed out before, what he owed you was to send you screaming to Hell for abusing the grace he has showered on you. Why can you read this text? Why can I write it? How come I can poke these little buttons and mostly intelligent stuff pops up on a screen? Where in the world did this screen come from? What’s that all about? Grace!! I tell you!! God has showered us with blessings popping out all over the place and thinks its all good, really good. And that’s grace too.
The big G on the eye chart, of course, is that God sent Jesus to die for us by grace (Rom 11:6). But everything else we have has been given to us by grace as well.
The thing is, God gives us things so that we can give them imitate him (Eph 5:1) and give them away to others. He gives things to us by grace so that we can give to others by grace. He said things like,
‘But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore He says: “When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, And gave gifts to men.”’ (Eph 4:7–8)
And, with only a parenthetical sentence between that and this:
“And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.” (Eph 4:11–16)
Each one of us has been given grace. It was given according to the size of Christ’s gift. How big was that gift? There a couple of ways of viewing this: First, God the Father sent his only begotten son to die in our place, at our hands. Second, the creator of the universe became a man and let sinful man kill him so that he could save that sinful man from their/our sins. Either of these is huge. Grace is huge!
So, what do we do with it? It says he led captivity captive (that’s us) and gave gifts to men (that’s us too). What are the gifts? First, they are people assigned to particular positions in the church: Apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors and teachers. These were given to the church to train the people to do the works of ministry. So, God gave Jesus and he gave church leaders. And the people they lead are supposed to serve by doing the works of ministry. This is all grace in action. God gives, so we give.
But this is in the church. What about the rest of society? It’s the same thing. Now, remember that this is all over the Bible. I’m just looking at Ephesians here because it popped up on my computer screen and it also has the same answers all in one place.
“This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.” (Eph 4:17–19)
This is the next section in Ephesians. The reason God wants gave the church leaders was so they should teach the folks how to walk in love (v. 16). Now, this was given so that each of us would no longer walk like the Gentiles who don’t know God, in craziness, walking into one another in the dark, being filled with hatred and being alienated from the true God because of blindness.
One of the major things to notice here is that unbelieving Gentiles don’t understand Grace and they live like they don’t. They backbite, they are jealous, they claw, they scratch, they destroy marriages and families, they destroy whole churches our of envy and vile imaginations.
“But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.” (Eph 4:20–24)
But we learned grace. We’ve been given grace. We’ve experienced grace. We live in grace. We love in grace. Christ was presented to us as a great gift and consequently, we give to others. We killed Christ and so when others treat us horribly, we respond with grace. Jesus entrusted himself to the God who judges righteously and so we entrust ourselves to the God who judges righteously.
We received Grace, so we clothe ourselves in grace. We’ve received Grace, so we give grace to everyone around us.
What does this have to do with rights? The Bible says we have rights, but in every place (we’ll talk about this in future posts) where rights are talked about, they are being laid down, given away, and not clung to. The Bible says we exist for joyful service, for loving kindness, for sharing the Love of God with everyone around us and in the process, we often do it by laying down our rights.
The main point here is that grace is the context of the Christian life. we receive grace from God, and we give grace to one another. And this goes to the ground and back up. It includes when things are going well, but it also includes when the one we’re giving grace to kills us. Because that’s what God did in Christ. In him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). He is our context for living. He is our life and consequently, we are filled and overflow with Grace.
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash