GRACE:NEVER TO GOOD TO NEED IT NOR NEVER TOO BAD TO RECEIVE IT

"...so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast." Ephesians 2:7-8


Do you think you are above the need for grace because you are so good, so moral, so devout, so much better than most people? Or perhaps, do you feel that you are too bad to be able to receive grace in your life? I have discovered, both in my own life and in counseling others for 34 years, that left to ourselves, we think we are either too good to need grace or too bad to receive it.

This morning I read David Paulison on this matter and he has given me lots to think about in this pervasive battle. So this week I take some of what he has written and a few of my thoughts to help you to be amazed again by grace!

Are you too good to need a major redemption? Do you know someone or live with someone who is “above” needing Christ?

Do you work with someone who lives for himself or herself: who feels superiority to others, who is full of self-pity, who has greedy cravings for more and better stuff, who holds well-nursed grievances, who constantly is chasing pipe dreams of success and happiness?

Grace pesters, perturbs, points to, and pursues us—it is grace, after all, that makes me even aware that sin is my deepest problem. Grace reveals that without it I am in serious trouble before God.

Are you a person who has contempt for someone else?

A person who has written off someone as a hopeless case?

A parent who frets or seethes at your children?

A person whose life is stained by disgruntlement because you’ve been shafted by life?

Grace wakes you up to your need for grace. You were dead and dark (2:1-3; 5:8). God made you alive (2:4-10). Don’t go back into darkness (4:17-19). Walk in light (5:9-20).

Perhaps you have been sinned against terribly.

Perhaps your own selfishness and sense of entitlement make you magnify minor offenses into capital crimes.

Perhaps your own sins provoked others to retaliate sinfully, reaping what you sow.

In any case, the riches of mercy for you can make you merciful to others. The wealth of forgiveness can make you forgiving to others. The depth of God's love can make you a lover of others.

Grace turns you upside down: the self-righteous and destructive become the grateful and constructive. Grace turns bitter and resentful and merciless to become kind, forgiving, and forbearing.

Are you too bad to receive grace?

Grace woos and comforts us when we think we are too far gone to be rescued.

How could you be too bad to receive what is for the bad?

Perhaps you are tempted to despair about yourself.

Perhaps someone you know is tempted to give up: “God could not possibly love me or help me. My failures are too much, too often, too strong. My sins are incurable. My situation is hopeless. I’m stuck and will never change. God is as disgusted with me as I am disgusted with myself.”

Is there anyone whose badness exceeds the diagnosis God makes of each of us?

You were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. (Ephesians 2:1-3)

If the diagnostic shoe fits, wear it. But then look at the wonderful, specific cure!

Is there anyone whose badness is so bad that it exceeds the scope and power of the cure?

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:4f).

God lavishes grace on us in Christ.

Paul Tripp says,

Grace will make you finally acknowledge that you cannot earn God's favor, and it will once and for all remove your fear of not measuring up to his standards. Grace will humble you with the fact that you are much less than you thought you were, even as it assures you that you can be far more than you had ever imagined. You can be sure that grace will put you in your place without ever putting you down.

Grace will enable you to face shocking truths about yourself that you have hesitated to consider, while freeing you from being self-consciously introspective. Grace will confront you with profound weaknesses, and at the same time bless you with new-found strength. Grace will tell you again and again what you aren't, while welcoming you again and again to what you can now be. Grace will make you as uncomfortable as you have ever been, while offering you a more lasting comfort than you have never before known .

Grace will work to drive you to the end of yourself, while it invites you to fresh starts and new beginnings. Grace will dash your ill-founded hopes, but never walk away and leave you hopeless. Grace will decimate your little kingdom of one as it introduces you to a much, much better King. Grace will expose to you the extent of your blindness as it gives you eyes to see what you so desperately need to see. Grace will make you sadder than you have ever been, while it gives you greater cause for celebration than you have ever known.

Grace enters your life in a moment and will occupy you for eternity. You simply cannot live a productive life in this broken-down world unless you have a practical grasp of the grace you have been given.

Are you living out of this amazing grace? Does it shape the way you respond to your personal struggles, your relationships, and your work? Does your trust in this grace form how you live with your husband or wife? Does it propel the way you parent your children? Does it give you comfort when friends have disappointed you? Does it give you rest when life is unpredictable and hard? Does it make you bold and give you courage in places where you would have once been timid? Does it make the idols that tempt you less attractive and less powerful? Do you wake up and say, "I don't know what I will face today, but this I do know: I have been given amazing grace to face it right here, right now."

May God help you to understand and rest in the grace that you have been given!

You are never too good to not need grace and you are never too bad to receive grace!

Amazed again by grace,
Pastor Bill