Grace Revolutions Aren't New

Allow me to begin by introducing you to somebody. I’m sure you’ve at least heard of him, but it’s important for you to know him for a number of reasons, not the least of which is because I hope you’ll see him as a distant relative of sorts – a kindred spirit. You may end up identifying him as somebody whose life was a template for the direction you’ll want to take in your own life.

I hope you’ll come to feel what he felt about the things he saw and that you see. I hope you’ll react similarly to how he reacted to those things. Many people who know his story would call him a hero. The strange thing about it, though, is that when you end up walking the course he traveled, many of those same people will despise you. The man was, without a doubt, a world-changer. It’s no exaggeration to say that, in many respects, your life today is what it is because of him.

But I get ahead of myself. Let’s start at the beginning, on a day that began like any another ordinary day for him. As things turned out, that day brought change to his life that came as fast as a lightening bolt. Life works that way sometime. We’re walking along, minding our own business, when suddenly God cuts in on us and, in a moment, everything is different. But more about that later. For now, back to his walk down a dirt road on a rainy day.

The lightning cut through the dark sky, like jagged arrows of high-charged anger being hurled at him by God Himself. The menacing clouds hung low over him and there was no place to hide. In fact, there was nothing to do except either submit to the fate of certain death or run. So he ran. He ran fast and he prayed as he ran. "Help me, Saint Anna and I will become a monk!” he cried in desperation. He ran faster and faster, trying to get home before the justice of the Almighty finally balanced the books on his ungodly life by engulfing him in one of the fiery bolts that he was so desperately trying to escape.

Thus began the spiritual journey of Martin Luther, the man who would spend many years of his life struggling to be the kind of priest who would make God proud. Little did he know on that day in the storm that the commitment he made to God would lead him through far greater storms than the one he was praying to escape right then. He only thought he had seen a storm. Those that would later be brought on him by the self-righteous leaders of the religious world in which he lived would make this one look like a stroll in the garden on a sunny day. I told you he is seen as a hero today, but many didn’t see it that way then.

On that note, and before we move on with Luther, I want to ask you to make a mental note to yourself right now. Self-righteous, religious people can be as mean as hell. Please don’t be offended by that statement. I don’t make the statement lightly, nor do I intend to be profane. To some old-fashioned churchgoers it may sound like I’m using bad language here or just being mean, but I’m not. I’m using the H-word in the way it’s used in the Bible, so don’t get skittish. That’s one of the things empty religion does to people – makes them paranoid about things they don’t need to be paranoid about. Political correctness has high-jacked the church world just like it has the rest of western culture.

I’ll go ahead and tell you now: I’m hoping to challenge you to become a revolutionary of grace and no revolution has ever been ushered in through political correctness. So the sooner you get used to plainspoken truth, the easier it will be for you to move forward. Contemporary religion has sanitized a generation of church-going people without sanctifying them. It has caused many to think that blunt truth boldly spoken is less than gracious, but nothing could be further from the truth. If ever there was a time when the church needs plainspoken truth, it’s now. Gracious ministry is grace-filled ministry and grace seeks to save people even when they don’t know that’s what is doing.

The hypersensitive prefer a domesticated god in a domesticated church world where playing nice and feeling good are the most important things. However, there are others who believe that the contemporary church world needs divine intervention. They are the ones who intuitively recognize that, just like the church world in Luther’s day, something has to change.

I hope you fit in the latter category of people and if you do decide to become proactive in moving the grace revolution forward, be prepared because – here it is again: Self righteous, religious people can be as mean as hell.

For those who will accuse me of such, I want to assure you that I’m not going for shock value in making that statement. I’m making a literal assertion, an observation made by many who have been sent and used by God the Father to accomplish His purposes. If you doubt the accuracy of the statement, ask yourself who it was that put the Son of God on the cross two thousand years ago. It was the religious mob that was the in-crowd down at the temple that was responsible for His crucifixion. Mean-spirited forces of hell cheered as mean-spirited religious leaders handed Jesus over to be crucified. The self-righteous handed over the Only-Righteous on the scene that day because He was a threat to the stability of the religious system they had spent years getting just right. They weren’t about to let Him mess it up now with all this talk of a Kingdom whose basic tenets of operation stood in stark contradiction to their own. He had to go – end of discussion.

Luther too would come to experience the wrath of the religious in his own life some years after his initial day in the rain. He indeed was a revolutionary who was used by God to shake up and wake up a slumbering mass of people who had drunk the Kool-Aid of religious legalism being served up in the church world of his day. That didn’t happen right away though. As is the case for many who come to discover God’s grace, not only for salvation, but for Christian living, Luther spent a number of years between his initial surrender to God and the time when he came tor understand what God truly wants from us as Christians, which has nothing to do with works.

Ultimately he came to see that there is only one response mortal man can have to a sovereign God and that is to simply trust in what He has already accomplished, to accept and live our lives in celebration of His finished work. “For what work greater than the work of God can we do?” Luther once asked. He went on, “But here the devil is busy to delude us with false appearances, and lead us away from the work of God to our own works.” Although he championed this message as a revolutionary, he traveled the rocky road of self-loathing for years before the fullness of God’s acceptance became clear to him.

As Luther’s understanding of grace broadened, he became increasingly zealous in his attempt to make that reality known to any and everybody who would listen. To him, the essence of our Christian walk is simply to believe and rest in the fulfilled promises of God concerning what He has done on our behalf in Christ.

In his Babylonian Captivity of the Church, he wrote:

For God does not deal, nor has he ever dealt, with man otherwise than through a Word of promise. We in turn cannot deal with God otherwise than through faith in the Word of his promise. He does not desire works, nor has he need of them; … But God has need of this: that we consider him faithful in his promises [Heb. 10:23], and patiently persist in this belief …

God has done the work and promised us that it’s enough that we simply believe that fact. It took Luther time to see and believe it and to lead others to see and believe it. In that way, his world was like ours.

Many fought Luther and many followed him, but at the end of His day grace had triumphed. If you grew up in a church where you were taught that becoming a Christian means believing that the finished work of Jesus Christ at the cross accomplished everything necessary for you to enjoy salvation and that your works don’t have one single thing to do with it, you can thank Martin Luther for that. The church in his day had partially lost sight of that.

Luther’s original intention wasn’t to establish anything new. His desire was for reformation – a re-forming of the church so that it would again be an expression of what He understood the Bible to say that the church is intended to be. He had no interest in being seen as a rebel against the church. He wanted to be a facilitator of change, but in spite of all he could do to avoid it, he began to be seen, not as a facilitator, but as an instigator who refused to leave well-enough alone. Be advised: that’s a risk you will run if you become of part of the grace revolution that has begun in the church today.

Self-righteous, religious folks can’t stand grace for at least one reason. It takes them completely out of the limelight and gives all the glory to God. Tell the church leaders in Luther’s day that people’s good works didn’t move them one inch toward God and, like Luther, you would have been considered a heretic.

Today this fundamental fact about salvation probably makes sense to most who read this. After all, the Protestant Reformation was five hundred years ago and the issue has long ago been settled. Works have nothing to do with salvation. Every Christian knows that. Though it was a controversial matter back then, that fact is a no-brainer in the church world today.

It’s a slightly different grace related issue that will get you into trouble with many in the church today. It’s not about salvation, but about sanctification – how a person becomes holy and then lives a holy lifestyle. Tell many at church that works don’t define salvation and they’ll say a hearty “Amen,” but tell them that the Christian life isn’t defined by works and you’d better take a step back and prepare yourself for the verbal lashing that is likely to follow.

In many ways, Protestant denominations today have lapsed right back into the same errors that stirred Luther to action in his day. The difference is that the controversy then surrounded what it took to become a Christian while today the issue revolves around what it takes to become a good Christian. It’s the same battle, just a different battleground.

To suggest that Jesus is the answer in both instances may seem obvious, but when you look at the message given in the modern church world, an unbiased observer would hardly come to that conclusion. Ask almost anybody in almost any contemporary congregation what a good Christian is and then listen as they describe all the things that person will be doing. They may have learned that at church but it sure didn’t come from the Bible.

The fact of the matter is this: Christianity isn’t about what we do. Neither entering nor living the Christian life revolves around doing. It has only to do with Jesus Christ and nothing else. I didn’t say we won’t do anything so please don’t read into my words something I haven’t said. Of course Christians do, but we don’t do to be good Christians. We do precisely because we are good Christians. We’re good Christians, not because of anything we may do or not do, but because our good God has put His good Spirit in us where He lives and defines us, giving us our very identity. Your goodness has nothing to do with anything you do. It’s because of what He has done.

Against my better judgment, I’m going throw out a bone here by mentioning works in their proper context. Yes, Christians do good works. There, I’ve said it. I’m sure somebody will read that statement and feel like a smoker who gets his first long draw after not having had a cigarette all day. If that’s you, savor the moment. Yes, we work. It’s inherent to who we are. I hope you feel better now, but I warn you – it’s going to have to last you because most of what I ever say or write isn't primarily about works, but grace.

You realize of course that I’m teasing the legalist here, yet at the same time I’m not kidding. Many need to detoxify from the addiction to works and stop having the need to constantly be reassured about the whole subject.

I can almost hear the voices now: “People may misunderstand what you’re saying and think works don’t matter at all!” That’s a risk anybody takes who teaches the pure grace of God, but it is a risk that must be taken if we’re going to avoid diluting the truth of the gospel. To make grace clear, we just have to run the risk.
The great Bible expositor, Martyn Lloyd Jones wrote:

The true preaching of the gospel of salvation by grace alone always leads to the possibility of this charge being brought against it. There is no better test as to whether a man is really preaching the New Testament gospel of salvation than this, that some people might misunderstand it and misinterpret it to mean that it really amounts to this, that because you are saved by grace alone it does not matter at all what you do; you can go on sinning as much as you like because it will redound all the more to the glory of grace. If my preaching and presentation of the gospel of salvation does not expose it to that misunderstanding, then it is not the gospel.

I hope you’ll begin to find yourself more and more addicted to grace and a biblical understanding of what it means to relax and simply allow Christ to live out His life through your lifestyle. If you get antsy when somebody like me talks about works not being the foundation of Christian living, keep reading. Like Luther’s experience in the storm, maybe you need a spiritual lightning bolt that turns your whole life in a new direction.

Works -- it always has been a hot topic in the church. It was the subject that triggered the revolution that led to reformation in Luther’s day and it’s the subject that the growing grace revolution hinges on today, five centuries later. Despite the fact that the Apostle Paul himself said that works and grace are impossible to mix , those who speak out boldly against works-righteousness as the basis of Christian living had better be prepared for resistance. The religious world hasn’t changed since Paul’s day or, for that matter, even Luther’s day when he addressed the subject as it relates to salvation.

Some have argued that “going too far with grace” can cause people to grow lax about sin in their lives. They imagine the Summer Youth Trip at the Local Community Church turning into a “Girls Gone Wild” video. That kind of assumption is totally ungrounded in reality. It ranks right up there with “There’s a boogey-man under my bed.”

Grace doesn’t cause people to go wild in sin. That’s a ridiculous idea perpetuated by two groups of people: (1) Those who are fearful because they don’t trust the Holy Spirit inside other people to lead them and (2) those who are afraid that they will lose control over other people if they actually begin to believe this grace teaching is true.

You can’t go too far with grace. That’s like saying, “don’t go too far with Jesus.” Paul wrote in Romans 5:17 that it is by the abundance of grace that we learn how to reign in life. The real threat to the church isn’t that we will go too far with grace, but that we won’t go far enough. Paul told Titus that the grace of God teaches us to deny ungodly behavior and empowers us to live like the righteous people we are. Show me somebody who is sinning and calling it grace and I’ll show you somebody who is telling a blatant lie. They’ve embraced disgrace and have given it a slanderous new name.

Do you feel an inner defense mechanism suddenly kick in when somebody like me starts to talk about how works aren’t the basis of the Christian life? If so, I encourage you to ask yourself why. Is it because you’re afraid that grace might cause people to become lazy or even passive? Grace won’t do that. The Apostle Paul commented on his own level of work when he said, “I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10).

Paul was willing to put his works ethic in the Christian life up against anybody. What was it that he said gave him such a strong motivation for works? It was the grace of God at work in him. You don’t have to be afraid that grace will make people lazy. True grace never does that. To the contrary, it motivates us toward authentic righteous works as opposed to mandating artificial religious works that only masquerade as being righteous.

In the contemporary culture of church life, where teaching grace as the norm for Christian living is so conspicuously absent, to point out the need for change can be misunderstood. It could sound to some like grace revolutionaries are against the church of Jesus Christ simply because we call for change in areas where we see unbiblical approaches. Be assured that another thing grace won’t do is turn people against the true church, but not everything you see out there is the true church. Religious, legalistic lunacy inside "the church" is another matter.

Some time ago I wrote an article in my newsletter about the danger of legalism in local churches. I was plainspoken, giving examples of what it looks like when a congregation is in the throes of legalism. Shortly after the article was published I received an email from a man who was outraged.

“How dare you be so critical of me and my church!” he wrote. He proceeded to move on from that point to give a quite articulate and thorough assessment of his opinion of me and of my ministry. I wasn’t surprised. That kind of thing has happened before and will happen again.

When I wrote him back, I reminded him that I had never met him nor had I ever been to his church. The only thing I had done was to describe what legalism looks like in practical terms. He’s the one who connected the dots. I’m not against anybody and I’m certainly not against God’s church.

I don’t want to be known for the things I’m against, but for the things I am for, but . . . A person who loves flowers will hate weeds. A person who loves health will hate disease. A person who loves grace will hate the things that take its place. That’s not unloving. That is love in action.

The very nature of revolution is the uprooting and overthrowing of existing ruling powers in order to establish a new authority. That’s what must happen in the modern church world if we are to continue to make an impact on the world with the gospel. Legalism must be uprooted and supplanted with the message of pure grace.

There has been an undercurrent of change that has been rising to the surface in the hearts and minds of many Christians lately. A generation of believers is emerging who believe that the performance based, let’s-just-rededicate-ourselves-and-try-harder, approach to the Christian life has had its day in the sun and its time has ended. We believe the chance of injecting life into the dead corpse of legalistic religion is a hopeless cause and believe that God’s answer is to restore grace to the center stage of His church.

Research done by The Barna Group indicates that of the 77 million American adults who are churched, born-again Christians, eight out of ten do not feel they have entered into the presence of God, or experienced a connection with Him during worship. Revolutionaries of grace believe that legalism is a leading cause for that and are persuaded that something must be changed. Sensing the undercurrent of that change, we have embraced the growing grace revolution and are trusting in God’s Spirit at work through us and in the modern church world to turn the focus of the church away from the religious dog-and-pony show that is so prevalent today and back to the centrality of Jesus Christ.

We want to reach the whole world with the gospel, but believe that for that to effectively happen we too must fully understand the gospel. If we have any hope of changing the way the world sees Christianity, there has to be a change in the way Christians sees God. We believe that our God is not a tyrannical deity waiting for us to show our appreciation by serving Him as many of us have been taught. He is a God of grace; a God of good will toward man as evidenced by the cross; a God who calls on us to give up the silly notion that we can jump through enough religious hoops to please Him and just accept His acceptance.

The worn out, tired, legalistic approach to the Christian life that many of us have known for most of our lives has been tried in the balance and found wanting. Some of those legalistic habits have become a part of the doctrine of the modern church by simple osmosis. Particular practices have been so embedded in the culture of the church that it has become almost impossible for many to know what is a legitimate part of the church and what is man made tradition that has been added on along the way. When something is done long enough and has been sanctioned by the religious powers-that-be again and again, those things reach a place of privilege where it almost seems blasphemous to question them, but they must be questioned if the grace revolution is to succeed.

Over time it isn’t unusual for sacred cows to disguise themselves as sacred doctrines and to question them risks accusation and attack from those who find great comfort in the familiar and don’t want the predictable world in which they are well vested to be knocked off kilter by the silly nuisance of truth. The truth is that sacred cows aren’t sacred doctrines, but are idols. Grace revolutionaries are those who are willing to pull the mask off these sacred cows, exposing their hideous faces to the light of biblical truth. We don’t do it out of malice, but because we love our God, His Word and His church. They don’t die quietly, but they must die if the grace of God is to have free reign in His church again.

Change is coming. It must and it is. The growing grace revolution will gain momentum as we each come to grip with our own understanding of God’s grace and see it be clarified and fortified by the Spirit of Grace Himself. A Revolution is under way and it is a revolution of love and freedom that flows from the very heart of our God.