What Is So Amazing About Grace?
What is So Amazing About Grace
By: Dr. Danny Purvis
We often throw around words like grace and mercy without oftentimes stopping and thinking about the gravity of those words. Grace is only grace if we understand what happens if we don’t receive it. Mercy is only mercy if we understand what happens if we don’t receive it. Heaven is only paradise if we juxtapose it with the horrors of hell. As I finished up the first chapter of Romans, I was struck by a phrase used by Paul (under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit) that stopped me in my tracks. We’ll get to that phrase at the end.
The opening 17 verses of Romans 1 focuses on the world of the Redeemed. He is talking specifically about Christians, the Gospel and what it means to be saved. Beginning in verse 18 he shifts his attention to what I call The Lost World. These are the majority of folks we are told are not Believers and probably will not become Believers. In verses 18-25 Paul communicates the “lostness” of people. That we are all owners of hearts of stone. Paul tells us that our hearts are darkened. Ezekiel tells us we have hearts of stone. That is our nature. The focus is not on individual sinful behaviors but on the bigger problem of our sinful nature. It is our sinful nature that leads into sinful actions. There is nothing we personally can do about that nature. Every single individual on the planet is born with that nature. Hence the need for the Cross and the Empty Tomb.
Now, after describing our sinful nature, Paul then moves on to actually providing a laundry list of individual sins that we engage in BECAUSE of our sinful nature. It is an interesting list. And all of these actions are listed together, which means we are supposed to take care not to “categorize” our sins. We are being warned here not to look at this list…see the really “bad” things…and then begin to weigh them out. As I said, the list is pretty comprehensive. He mentions everything from murder to gossips and disobedient children. Now, in our culture, we absolutely pride ourselves on our ability to “rank” sins…or wrongdoing if you prefer. Even our judicial system does this. Generally speaking, our crimes are officially corralled into two categories: Misdemeanors and felonies.
In other words, even our judicial system seems to categorize some wrongdoing as “worse” than others. Culturally, we do the same thing. For instance, culturally, we emphatically would categorize shoplifting and murder differently. We would have no problem saying that one was inherently “worse” than the other. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with that from a cultural standpoint. We do not want shoplifters to get life in prison alongside serial killers. There is a cultural difference. But there is a problem.
From a Christian standpoint, a Biblical standpoint, we have allowed that philosophy to spread into our understanding of sin. I have often said that that average Believer’s definition of sin is: Something that someone else does that is worse than what I do. We acknowledge that we do some “wrong” things, but we caveat that by convincing ourselves that these things are not “as wrong” as the things other people do. Again, culturally I have no problem with that. However, when we look at this list of behaviors at the end of the first chapter of Romans, I hope we are seeing that this is not how God views these things.
Evil, murder, homosexuality, God-hating are listed along with gossip, haughtiness, insolence, and boasting. This list runs the gamut from what we would often consider to be the “worst” of sins and the “not so bad as others” sins. But the very fact that these things are all listed together sends an extremely important message: God does not categorize sins. One of the takeaways here is that all of the things on this list are equally “bad” regardless of how we may view them from a cultural standpoint. Simply put, we cannot let the culture define for us what is “bad” and what is “really bad”. If we do, then we will not see the devastating effects of sin and therefore will not truly understand the words we started out talking about: Grace and Mercy. How do we know that God views these different actions as all rooted in the same disobedience and therefore are the same? Here is where that phrase I mentioned I saw earlier comes into play.
After listing all of these sinful actions, Paul writes that “those who practice such things deserve to die”. I hope you’re seeing the gravity of that statement. Paul is saying that not only do murderers and God haters deserve to die for their sin, so to do gossipers, boasters, slanderers. This is God clearly trying to get us to see how terrible sin is. How destructive it is. And how we can never, ever get to the point where we are comfortable with our sin. The more comfortable we get with our sin, the more lightly we will evaluate it. The more we will do it because we will have told ourselves it's not that big a deal. It’s not that “big” a sin. And if I have a low view of sin, I will have a low view of grace and mercy.
Grace is not given to someone who is “really not that bad”. Grace is given to someone because they know exactly how “bad” they really are. Most of those sins on the list are not ones that we would see culturally as “devastating”. It is filled with what many would call “lesser” sins. They are not lesser sins. Because God specifically tells us that anyone who does such things is deserving of death. And only when we come to realize that we are, in fact, deserving of death for the sins we commit, are we then able to see grace for what it is. The single greatest, benevolent act that God can possibly bestow on a human being. And we all need as much as we can get. God doesn’t give me grace because I am a good person. He gives it to in spite of the fact that I am not a good person. The more I recognize my sin…the more amazing grace actually becomes. How cool is that?
-Dr. Danny Purvis
By: Dr. Danny Purvis
We often throw around words like grace and mercy without oftentimes stopping and thinking about the gravity of those words. Grace is only grace if we understand what happens if we don’t receive it. Mercy is only mercy if we understand what happens if we don’t receive it. Heaven is only paradise if we juxtapose it with the horrors of hell. As I finished up the first chapter of Romans, I was struck by a phrase used by Paul (under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit) that stopped me in my tracks. We’ll get to that phrase at the end.
The opening 17 verses of Romans 1 focuses on the world of the Redeemed. He is talking specifically about Christians, the Gospel and what it means to be saved. Beginning in verse 18 he shifts his attention to what I call The Lost World. These are the majority of folks we are told are not Believers and probably will not become Believers. In verses 18-25 Paul communicates the “lostness” of people. That we are all owners of hearts of stone. Paul tells us that our hearts are darkened. Ezekiel tells us we have hearts of stone. That is our nature. The focus is not on individual sinful behaviors but on the bigger problem of our sinful nature. It is our sinful nature that leads into sinful actions. There is nothing we personally can do about that nature. Every single individual on the planet is born with that nature. Hence the need for the Cross and the Empty Tomb.
Now, after describing our sinful nature, Paul then moves on to actually providing a laundry list of individual sins that we engage in BECAUSE of our sinful nature. It is an interesting list. And all of these actions are listed together, which means we are supposed to take care not to “categorize” our sins. We are being warned here not to look at this list…see the really “bad” things…and then begin to weigh them out. As I said, the list is pretty comprehensive. He mentions everything from murder to gossips and disobedient children. Now, in our culture, we absolutely pride ourselves on our ability to “rank” sins…or wrongdoing if you prefer. Even our judicial system does this. Generally speaking, our crimes are officially corralled into two categories: Misdemeanors and felonies.
In other words, even our judicial system seems to categorize some wrongdoing as “worse” than others. Culturally, we do the same thing. For instance, culturally, we emphatically would categorize shoplifting and murder differently. We would have no problem saying that one was inherently “worse” than the other. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with that from a cultural standpoint. We do not want shoplifters to get life in prison alongside serial killers. There is a cultural difference. But there is a problem.
From a Christian standpoint, a Biblical standpoint, we have allowed that philosophy to spread into our understanding of sin. I have often said that that average Believer’s definition of sin is: Something that someone else does that is worse than what I do. We acknowledge that we do some “wrong” things, but we caveat that by convincing ourselves that these things are not “as wrong” as the things other people do. Again, culturally I have no problem with that. However, when we look at this list of behaviors at the end of the first chapter of Romans, I hope we are seeing that this is not how God views these things.
Evil, murder, homosexuality, God-hating are listed along with gossip, haughtiness, insolence, and boasting. This list runs the gamut from what we would often consider to be the “worst” of sins and the “not so bad as others” sins. But the very fact that these things are all listed together sends an extremely important message: God does not categorize sins. One of the takeaways here is that all of the things on this list are equally “bad” regardless of how we may view them from a cultural standpoint. Simply put, we cannot let the culture define for us what is “bad” and what is “really bad”. If we do, then we will not see the devastating effects of sin and therefore will not truly understand the words we started out talking about: Grace and Mercy. How do we know that God views these different actions as all rooted in the same disobedience and therefore are the same? Here is where that phrase I mentioned I saw earlier comes into play.
After listing all of these sinful actions, Paul writes that “those who practice such things deserve to die”. I hope you’re seeing the gravity of that statement. Paul is saying that not only do murderers and God haters deserve to die for their sin, so to do gossipers, boasters, slanderers. This is God clearly trying to get us to see how terrible sin is. How destructive it is. And how we can never, ever get to the point where we are comfortable with our sin. The more comfortable we get with our sin, the more lightly we will evaluate it. The more we will do it because we will have told ourselves it's not that big a deal. It’s not that “big” a sin. And if I have a low view of sin, I will have a low view of grace and mercy.
Grace is not given to someone who is “really not that bad”. Grace is given to someone because they know exactly how “bad” they really are. Most of those sins on the list are not ones that we would see culturally as “devastating”. It is filled with what many would call “lesser” sins. They are not lesser sins. Because God specifically tells us that anyone who does such things is deserving of death. And only when we come to realize that we are, in fact, deserving of death for the sins we commit, are we then able to see grace for what it is. The single greatest, benevolent act that God can possibly bestow on a human being. And we all need as much as we can get. God doesn’t give me grace because I am a good person. He gives it to in spite of the fact that I am not a good person. The more I recognize my sin…the more amazing grace actually becomes. How cool is that?
-Dr. Danny Purvis
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