Sin, Grace, Freedom & Service

by Rev Stuart Adamson

I find in my sinful nature I am always seeking to justify my sinful actions. It is a testimony to the fact that I agree that sin is a problem that needs to be dealt with one way or another.

Pretending that sin does not exist will never work, though it may make our consciences feel good for a while. If we spend time in the Bible we are confronted and rebuked by the truth of Gods Word, Christian or not. 

But for the believer, and the believing chaplain, indeed for anyone serving the Lord with the gifts He has given them, if we pretend that our sin is not real, or if we are unaware of it, we will grieve the Spirit, or worse, as the writer to the Hebrews calls it, "trample the Son of God under our very feet." (10:29) Effectively, we will be trying to live our lives in a way that inherently denies that Jesus died the second death in our place when he died for us on the cross. 

Grace is in effect the unmerited favour of God. Cheap grace is the idea that we do not need to respond to the demands of grace (is grace entirely undemanding?) or the favour that God has bestowed on us in Christ. That is, we can keep on sinning as though there is no need to repent.

The phrase that Paul uses "God cannot be mocked" (Gal 6:7) basically means that we can't pull the wool over God's eyes. He knows our hearts, he knows our conscience and if we intend to continue in our sin, there is no forgiveness. (Hebrews 10:26) 

A right response to God's grace to us in Christ is sorrow for sin, for the recognition that the offence is not just against another human made in the image of God, but also against God himself. But further, a right understanding of grace leads to a desire to change, to turn away from sin. 

When Peter, seeking to justify himself, asks Jesus how many times should he forgive the brother who sins against him, he thinks he is being very big hearted when he says "seven". Imagine his surprise and disbelief when Jesus responds with "seventy times seven." (Matt 18:22).

In underscoring the boundless nature of God's forgiveness toward repentant sinners, and that we should have the same attitude towards those who wrong us, Jesus is challenging Peter's sinful desire, even in the midst of his right service and seeming right thinking, to seek his own justification.

I have a lot of sympathy with Peter. Isn't Jesus setting the bar impossibly high? This is the chief apostle who was with Jesus from the beginning, who preached the first gospel sermon in Acts 2. 

If he hasn't  got it together, what chance do we have? 

But that is the wrong question though isn't it? Jesus deals graciously with Peter's sinful desire that says, look at me, aren't I great for doing the right thing? So should we when we see it in others, or in ourselves. He calls out the error and calls for repentance. Because grace expects a right and Godly response from sinners who know that while it is undeserved favour, it was not cheap, it does not invite further indulgence of the sinful nature. 

Paul dealt with cheap grace very deftly and devastatingly in his letter to the church in Rome. He has been emphasising Jesus' very point to Peter in Matthew's gospel referred to above. He had been saying, where sin abounds, grace trumps it. In other words, grace beats sin every time. And what's more, true grace does not lead to license, that is, permission to keep on living a life of sinfulness. 

True grace leads to a desire to turn away from sin and to serve the Lord with thankfulness and real devotion, more and more.

Listen to this from Paul in Romans 6:1-3. "What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace might increase? May it never be! We died to sin, how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised to new life through the glory of the father, we too may live a new life. "

We have been spiritually raised with Christ to live a new life with him right now. To sow for the Spirit in the power of his grace.

Further, Paul says in 1 Cor 15:10 "But by the grace of God I am what I am and his grace to me was not without effect. No I worked harder than all of them. Yet not I but the grace of God that was within me."

Grace issues forth in hard work. 

If I am trying to justify myself in my work, I am not working hard because I have been set free to serve, I am working hard out of a sinful refusal to accept Jesus as my Lord, even in my day to day service of Him!

But Paul goes even further to help us have a right perspective. He says the hard work that God has for us to do is a gift of his grace.

Ephesians 2:10

" For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do. "

There is great freedom if we serve in response to and because of His grace. We serve in love, in the power of the Spirit and to the glory of God in Christ, because we have no obligation to the sinful nature.