Grace Before Mission

 

 

 

 

 

 

A people called to mission who first behold (not in theory but in ongoing reality) the grace of God, will be equipped to go forth in the overflow and excess of that grace. I think this is the corporate goal of the Holy Spirit, “Lord, stretch forth your hand to heal the sick, bring love and deliverance to the poor, working wonders, setting people free from law and oppression” etc.

In this way of overflowing love, I am not priding myself on giving to the poor and disenfranchised, but I am acknowledging Christ giving to them through me. If we are beholding God’s grace and sheer goodness, Jesus said, “From your innermost being there shall flow [continuously] springs and rivers of living water”. His life, out of relationship, will be uncontainable.

The book of Acts church did not go forth into the community simply to “be missional”; they prioritized receiving from the outstretched hand of God and then they found the surrounding community “added to them daily”. Great grace was upon them (Acts 4:33) and this proved to be irresistable to the lost and disenfranchised. They went out into the streets and freely poured out the life, joy, and love that He was freely pouring out on them! The community itself was a sign and a wonder.

This is why we can’t put a missional cart before grace. Paul reminds us of this in I Corinthians 13:1-3,13,“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I have become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have prophecies, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so as to move mountains, and do not have love, I am nothing. And though I give out all my goods to feed the poor, and though I deliver my body to be burned, and have not love, I am profited nothing. For now there are faith, hope, and love. But of these three, the greatest of these is love.”

Something Is Happening At The Burlington Emergency Shelter: Grace At Work

I know that’s a strange title to a post, but that’s the thought that has been running through my mind this past week. And it’s because something is happening at the Burlington Emergency Shelter!

The Burlington Emergency Shelter is a Christian homeless shelter providing temporary housing for homeless adult men and women in Chittendon County, Vermont. Our church periodically provides meals at the shelter, and we lead a weekly Bible Study there. Over time, the grace emphasis in the Bible Study has strengthened. I am aware that something has shifted; it’s hard to explain. There’s a greater expectation, a greater anticipation, and agreater awareness of God’s activity. It’s like Paul said in Romans 15:29, when we show up at the Shelter and the Bible Study begins, we enter into “the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ”. As things progress in the meeting, we are suddenly in the overflow and excess of God’s grace. Because God’s grace means unconditional acceptance, more people are beginning to participate.

For awhile I’d been letting God know how desperate I was for more opportunity to release His freeing grace that so compels us to tell others about Him, and then this! It goes to show you that God’s grace never leads to passivity but to outrageous adventure! At the Emergency Shelter, God has provided yet another outlet to bring transformation to the hurting, the lonely, the poor, the oppressed, and the oppressor. “Where sin increased and abounded, grace has surpassed it and increased the more and superabounded”.

Each week after the Bible Study we look back the next day in awe; we shake our heads in amazement over what “the GRACE OF GOD has done” the night before! The unobstructed view of the kindness of God and the influence of God’s love upon hearts explains the “after shelter” residual effects. Pure joy is found in the presence of God. It is amazing how much gets accomplished while “resting” in His labor and not in our own strength. This is exciting; this is real Christianity, not superficial but experiential; the way we were intended to live. The Burlington Emergency Shelter Bible Study is currently a “Religion Free Zone”. There is now no condemnation.

Many of the people who attend the Study have a history in “church” but became bored or worn out by religion. Weary of legalism and required involvement in activities that did not draw them into God’s presence, many found they no longer could endure it and left the system. BUT NOW there is this organic interchange of shared lives bringing multiplied GREAT grace. God is strategically connecting people. For instance, Cody, a new resident staff member who proclaims humbly that his home is among the homeless, is being used mightily by God to impact lives – both ours and those at the Shelter. Through a shameless humility, Cody continually encourages and builds us all up both in the Bible Study and on a daily basis. There are many others as well that God is joining supernaturally – Carl, Scott, Keith, Rick, and Nopolis – just to name a few.

In a previous post I wrote about how as a brand new Christian 31 years ago, I started a Bible Study at a drug program I directed in Miami, Florida. I said, “There’d be 40 or 50 of us smoking cigarettes and praising God. Because of all the smoke, we could barely see each other across the room! And it wasn’t until much later that we finally stopped using some fairly creative profanity as we talked about how awesome God was! Yet over the years that followed, many of those one time “ex addicts” came to faith; no longer “ex” anything but now BRAND NEW CREATURES IN CHRIST! God’s grace draws broken people; it draws them to the One full of grace and truth. And though I didn’t know anywhere near what I know now about God’s grace, we experienced it anyway; in a way that “passed knowledge”. Is this happening again at the Burlington Emergency Shelter? Oh God let it be so.

Essential Love

There is an experience of God that is beyond knowledge. Ephesians 3:16-19 explains, “That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in LOVE, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, length, depth, height and experience of that love; to KNOW the LOVE of Christ which passes knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fullness of God”. There is an area of the heart that God wants to deeply touch, effect, and fill with His love. It’s a love that surpasses the cerebral; it’s often emotional and many times unforgettable, bringing freedom. We don’t have to work to receive it or be holy enough to “get it”; it is by grace. We simply begin acknowledging (as we see in the above Scriptures) that this is God’s desire and align ourselves with His invitation. I can tell you by experience that His love is entirely recognizable. There is a capacity in us, through the inner man, that God made certain He could dwell in and impact (immeasurably) with His love.

Ephesians 3:19 says that as we progressively come to know this love of God, we’ll “be filled with all the fullness of God”. How could this be? Well, I don’t know exactly but I John 4:16 tells us that “God IS love, and he who dwells and continues in love dwells and continues in God, and God dwells and continues IN him”. As we continue abiding in Him relationally, He is sure to fill us with a greater consciousness of His love experientially. In other words, He wants every one of us filled with Him. This is for us, for others, and for His glory!. 

Now there is a specific aspect of this love that we will come to partake of. I John 3:16 says, “By this we come to know (progressively) the ESSENTIAL love: that He laid down His own life for US; that we might lay our lives down for OTHERS”. As we continue to “behold (and thus experience) what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us” (I John 3:1) there is a place in the inner man that is strengthened and then activated by that love into overflow. Then, like Paul, we can say, “I am sure that when I come to you, I shall come in the FULLNESS of the blessing of the gospel of Christ”. (Romans 15:29). We will go forth filled with all the fullness of God’s love and in the overflow and excess of the blessing of the GOOD NEWS of God’s grace!

Grace Without Balance

There are many arguments put forth to “balance” grace. It is said that “We must not over-emphasize grace but balance it with obedience so sin does not have license”. The idea is to soften the concept of grace by adding discipline to balance it. However, it isn’t biblical to balance grace with anything, even obedience. By adding we nullify; we nullify grace working. So why waste time trying to work out a theology “balancing” law and grace? The closest the bible comes to talking about balance in this sense is in Revelation 3:15 where Jesus says, “I know everything you have done, and you are not cold or hot. You are lukewarm. I wish you were either one or the other”.

See, it is not as if grace is one way to deal with sin among many, it is the only way. If we try to add something to grace, the process of dealing with sin and producing spiritual fruit is hindered. Again, by adding, we nullify; we “frustrate” the grace of God, limiting its power to impact hearts. This is why the “virtue” of balance is not promoted in the area of grace.

Let me emphasize that I fully recognize the seriousness of sin. However, making light of sin is saying that it can be harnessed by discipline and doing our very best to obey. But sin is so beguiling—so devastating—that we do not have the resources to conquer it. We want sin out of our lives because we know its consequences; however, we also see in Scripture that the only way to get sin out of our lives is by resting in grace. It is about getting sin out by getting the message of grace in. And this is why we do not soften grace by adding something to it as a balance. We are not called to production but to reception. As the seed of grace is watered by the message of grace “the same brings forth much fruit”.

Much of the church today says, “People not only need grace; they need to be taught compliance or else sin will increase”. You would think that the sole objective of Christianity is the improvement of human conduct. No, the supreme motive of God in the creation and in the midst of sin is that the riches of His grace might be disclosed to all intelligence through His church. And if this is so, than not only justification but sanctification must be by grace alone or His purpose fails to be realized. The supreme, divine purpose of this age is the manifestation of God’s grace. Ephesians 2:6,7 says, “And He has raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. He did this that He might clearly demonstrate through the ages to come the immeasurable riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus”. No wonder where sin abounds, grace much MORE abounds!

The message of grace is not about the improvement of conduct but the proclamation of the mighty, redeeming, transforming unconditional love of God which produces fruit unto the glory of God. Balance grace? No, instead let’s continue “growing in grace and in knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ”.