Grace Abuse

I must confess, as a youth minister I sometimes have a hard time preaching and teaching on the unconditional, unending grace of God. Why you ask? Well, it’s not a matter of belief, because I wholeheartedly believe that God offers unconditional, unmerited, and unending grace to those that accept it. The problem comes with a fear of what I would call “Grace Abuse.” Sometimes I wonder if even Paul might have felt a little the same way. In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he tells the people that where sin abounds, grace abounds even more (5:20). But right after stating this, Paul, anticipating what the readers are going to say, goes ahead and says it for them. “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? (6:1)” I then imagine Paul jumping up and down, yelling out, as he writes his answer to his own question....By No Means!.....translation: NO!! (6:2a) Paul doesn’t want the people reading this letter to get the idea that as long as I’ve got the grace of Christ in my back pocket, I can sin like crazy because you know what, the grace of Christ is going to always be more than my sin. <---This is my fear when talking with teenagers.

I love teenagers. I wouldn’t be in student ministry if I didn’t have a heart for teenagers. That being said, I know most teenagers today are pulled in 20 million directions with what seems like 20 million voices speaking into their lives. With the average attention span of about 13 minutes for teenagers, I sometimes worry about what students are hearing whenever I get a chance to speak to them. That is why, like Paul, I don’t want teenagers or any person to think that if I just believe on this man Jesus, because apparently he’s pretty cool, I’ll get to go to heaven when I die, and I can pretty much do whatever (translation: sin like crazy) because God is full of grace and mercy. I actually cringe inside at the thought of teenagers walking away with only this idea.

There are two points that I think everyone, including teenagers must understand about God and His grace. The first point is the fact that God is holy and perfect. If God is perfect and hates sin, He must be perfectly just. Following me? If God doesn’t act justly by punishing sin, He is not perfect. However, we know that He is perfect according to His Word. For the Jews, during the time of the Old Testament, they understood the fact that God was holy and just. As a result, the Jews feared God. Recalling what my Hebrew professor told my class in seminary, when we see in the Bible that the Jews feared God, this was not a warm, tingling feeling of awe, but literal fear. They feared God because they knew they were not perfect and that God had the right and ability to deal justly with them. They feared and revered God so much that they would not even say or write the name of God (Yahweh) out of fear they would blaspheme His name. I fear, that we as Christians today, especially those in America, are quick to talk about the grace of God, but will hardly mention the justness of God. Our God is full of grace, yes, but He is full of awesome and mighty power. He is worthy to be feared. There must be a balance of the grace and justness of God on our lips.

The second point we must understand about grace is the fact that if we truly understand and accept the grace of Christ, then we will no longer want to do whatever (translation: sin like crazy). Paul continues to tell the Romans that once you have accepted the gift of grace in Christ you “must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions…For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under the law but under grace. (6:11-12;14)” With the grace of Christ we overcome sin, we don’t make room for it to grow more. It is no longer a part of us because it is dead, so we must walk in righteousness. Therefore, if a person accepts the grace of Christ and continues to walk in sin, I wonder if they ever really understood the gift of Christ to begin with.

May we never see the grace of God as an opportunity to practice “Grace Abuse” but as an opportunity to offer thanksgiving with acts of righteousness.