(A
sermon by Ronald L. Dart)
David hid
himself in the field for three days. He had to take off without any preparation
and they left in a hurry, they had taken no food. He was fleeing from King
Saul. When they came to a place called Nob, by the time they got there, they
were in a bad situation. They needed food, and there was only one place that
David knew of where he might get something to eat. The story is in 1 Samuel 21.
1 Samuel
21:1, "Then came David to Nob to Ahimelech the priest: and Ahimelech was
afraid at the meeting of David, and said unto him, Why art thou alone, and no
man with thee?"
Ahimelech
was frightened that David was showing up there by himself, it was very unusual.
For David, as one of the King’s top men, was always accompanied by a regiment
of people. He had some fighters that traveled with him usually, who were men
who were the type who wore their cloths out from the inside, they were tuff
men. David was alone. But David said to Ahimelech the priest, who really was
concerned and wanted to know why he was alone, said, "The king has
commanded me a business, and he said to me ‘tell no man of the business I’m
about to send you on that I commanded you’, and I…", David said, "have
sent my servants on ahead, I’ll be meeting them shortly" (1 Sam.21:2).
Now David lied to the
priest. Should he have done that? Well, in fact, he goes on now to compound his
law breaking.
1 Samuel
21:3-6, "Now therefore what is under thine hand? give me five loaves of
bread in mine hand, or what there is present. And the priest answered David,
and said, There is no common bread under mine hand, but there is hallowed bread
if the young men have kept themselves at least from women. And David answered
the priest, and said unto him, Of a truth women have been kept from us about
these three days, since I came out, and the vessels of the young men are holy,
and the bread is in a manner common, yea, though it were sanctified this day in
the vessel. So the priest gave him hallowed bread: for there was no bread there
but the shewbread, that was taken from before the LORD, to put hot bread in the
day when it was taken away."
Now this is a real classic
of realization. A reasoning your way around the law. Right? The law says no one
but the priests can eat Holy bread (Exo.25:30, Lev.24:5). Well, we have a
problem. Maybe if the young men haven’t been close to women the past three days
and maybe with this it’s all right. And David said, "well, yea, in a
manner of speaking, it’s common", and he managed his way to work around
it, and the priest gave him the shewbread to eat.
If you were the judge, and
this infraction was brought before you…because it is an infraction of the law,
make no mistake about that, only the priests could eat Holy bread…what would
you say? And how do you think God would judge this infraction of the law? Well,
fortunately, we have a clue. Jesus himself evaluated this instance.
Matthew
12:1-2, "At that time Jesus went on the Sabbath day through the corn; and
his disciples were a hungred, and began to pluck the ears of corn, and to eat.
But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do
that which is not lawful to do upon the Sabbath day."
Now, a very interesting
question comes up at this point. Was it, or was it not? Surely, by their
interpretation, it was wrong for them to be plucking those ears of corn and
eating on the Sabbath day. You are supposed to get your food ready on Friday so
you don’t have to do that kind of thing. Jesus replied:
Matthew
12:3-4, "But he said unto them, Have ye not read what David did, when he
was an hungred, and they that were with him; How he
entered into the house of God, and did eat the shewbread,
which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but
only for the priests?"
Now, you think about that
for a moment. Jesus was plainly ready to let David off.
Not only that, he did not even argue with the Pharisees the
question of whether it was right or wrong for his disciples to pluck ears
of corn on the Sabbath day. In fact, he turns to David’s situation and he just
says, "Look what David did! He did what was not lawful to do."
On what basis did Jesus let
them off? On what basis was he prepared to justify David? Well, if you look at
the situation, you have the crowd that says, "If you give them an inch
they’ll take a mile", and their idea is you don’t
give that inch in the first place and then nobody can take the mile. Everything’s kept nice and neat, and everything is quite in
order. This school of thought is exemplified by the Pharisees.
They say to themselves, "Look, we’ve got to spell
these things out. We’ve got to build a fence around the law so that people will
not accidentally step over the line and break God’s law, thereby be defiled or
incur God’s displeasure."
Now, there is a strange
fear, and maybe you feel a little of it right now, that if we begin to let the
barriers down, that people will take liberties, and they will abuse the law,
and everything will get completely out of control. Well, I can tell you one
thing, Jesus and the Pharisees were on completely opposite
sides of the fence on this issue. On that, there can’t
be much dispute.
Now, somebody might have
walked up to Jesus right after he had said this, and quoted him this scripture:
Exodus
29:32-33, "And Aaron and his sons shall eat the flesh of the ram, and the
bread that is in the basket, by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
And they shall eat those things wherewith the atonement was made, to consecrate
and to sanctify them: but a stranger shall not eat thereof, because they are
holy."
That’s not the only scripture he could
have quoted to Jesus, because, very plainly, if you go back to the law, the law
does not make any room for exemptions on the shewbread.
It’s for the priests, no one else. And
the person would want to know, "Jesus? How can you justify what David did
in light of these passages of scripture?" How do you suppose Jesus would
have answered him?
Well, I am going to try to
answer that question for you in some detail. And, in
the process, I’m going to explain to you one of the most important things you
will ever learn about God and his law. In fact, if you can grasp what I’m about
to say, it may revolutionize the way you read the Bible, the way you relate to
God, and the way you relate to one another. Now, if this sounds a little
presumptuous to you, well, we’ll let you listen and
you can judge when I have finished.
But first, I want to make three things clear.
One: the law of the shewbread was
not superseded or set aside by any of the actions of David. David did
not have that kind of authority. The law of the shewbread
was not unimportant. It was as important as any other
law of God. It was the law of God then, it was the law when David did it, it
was the law when Christ talked about it, and it was the law after that. Two: I
am a radical believer in the law of God. Three: All rationalizations considered, David did break the law. Jesus said he ate the bread which was not lawful for him to eat.
Why, then, does Jesus use
this example in reply to the accusation that his disciples were breaking the
Sabbath day? How is it possible for him to justify David? And how can he
justify David when there is not a hint in the biblical account of any remorse on
David’s part, of any repentance on David’s part, nor anything being done by
David to make up for his error? Nothing. He just did
it, and he went away. How can he do that?
The answer comes in one
word. It’s a familiar word. In fact, the word is too
familiar. It’s been used and used and used, and I
think it’s gotten to the place where nobody really has much of a clue what
Jesus means when he uses this word, or when anyone else does for that matter.
The word is "Grace". A one
syllable, short little word. Grace. And here is
a sentence that’s so important, you might want to write it down, because I
don’t want you to forget it. Grace is an Old Testament doctrine.
Grace is an Old Testament
doctrine. David, an Old Testament character, was justified, not because what he
did was right, but because God is gracious. Isn’t that
simple? Now I know you know that God is gracious. I know you heard that
phrase, "God is gracious". It may be a part
of, "God is merciful, gracious, slow to anger".
You know, all these lines and words and descriptions of what God is like. God
is gracious. I wonder, though, what we think that means. What does it mean to
say that God is gracious? Well, one of the things I want to try to do today is
to see if I can explain to you, clearly, what that means.
There’s a beautiful example of the
graciousness of God right in the very beginning of your Bible. God came to the
end of all his creation, and finally, on the sixth day, he created man. He
created man in his own image. And we’re told that he
created man male and female. And he took the man and
woman he created, both of them perfect physical specimens, beautiful creatures,
well formed in every direction, fully mature, beautiful, gorgeous people, and
they were, in God’s wisdom, completely naked. And God
said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply".
Now, there are two kinds of
people listening to me today. There are the people who believe that God is all seeing, he knows everything that is happening, and that
nothing in the world is hidden from him. Then there are the people who believe
the book of Genesis is telling the truth. And the book
of Genesis presents a different picture for us. For Genesis gives us the
picture that God created this beautiful woman and this handsome man, and put
them in this lovely garden on a warn sunny day, totally
naked, and then he left them completely alone!
You know, what is
interesting to me is, I personally am charmed by the
Genesis account. I just read it and I’m filled to
overflowing with a realization of who I’m looking at here. Who is this person?
For what he has now done is what a gracious man would
do. He did not create them beautiful, naked, and tell them to reproduce, and
then go hide in the bushes and watch! He granted them complete privacy, which
has an interesting consequence. It means that God doesn’t
know everything or see everything that ever happens. Not that he couldn’t, it is that he chooses not to. Why does he choose not to? Because God is gracious.
Gracious is a character trait that responds to awkward situations with grace.
There are those who believe
that God is more like a computer than he is like a man. If you press the delete
button, things disappear! That’s the way God is. Press
the right button things go away, you press this button things appear. It’s all automatic. They picture a God who is remorseless,
that whatever the program says has to happen, has to happen, and if anything
happens contrary to that it’s because the program was
written wrong or was written differently than what we thought it was. God is
like a computer. Whatever happens, if you do wrong then you suffer, if you do
right then things work for you. It’s all automatic. That’s what some people believe about God. They would never in a million years admit that. But emotionally, in their heart, in the way they think about
God, pray to him, and react to him, they think he is more like a computer than
he is like a man. "If you break the law, the law breaks you". I wonder if you’ve ever
heard that expression. David broke the law, and the law didn’t
break him! What went wrong with our computer program? Something did.
God is
not a computer, God is a person. And the thing that
began to dawn on me in the first two chapters of Genesis is, not only is God a
person, but that God is personable. That he has characteristics and traits of a
person, and that when you are with him he is gracious, he is kind, he is generous, he is open. One of
the things that terrify us about God is that he is also just, and believes in
justice, and insists on justice. But you know, mercy
rejoices against justice. And it is the justice of God
and of his world that he himself decides not to carry out, that constitutes
grace, graciousness, and mercy. God is a kind person, he is gentle, he is
compassionate, he is forgiving, he is gracious.
Now, it is true that God
can be very strict at times, but that strictness grows out of his sense of
justice. And when you don’t have any justice, what you
would have is capriciousness. And there is a world of
difference, there’s a great gulf, between graciousness and capriciousness. Because graciousness can exist right along side of justice.
The two of them go hand in hand, because there was justice: Adam and Eve were
eventually shut out of the garden of Eden, they were
denied access to the tree of life (Gen.3:24), because there was justice. But in fact, it was a choice they made; they chose the tree
of the knowledge of Good and Evil.
Time passed, two sons are
born. One of them is named Cain, the other one is
named Abel. You know the story: they made their offerings to God,
God accepted Abel’s offering, but he didn’t accept Cain’s offering. Cain was
angry, and apparently he called his brother out into
the field, and while they were out there, and they argued, he killed him. And God came looking for Abel, and he said to Cain,
"Where’s your brother?" And Cain lied! He
said, "I don’t know! Am I my brother’s keeper?!"
And God said, "Your brother’s blood cries to me
from the ground, I know what’s happened" (Gen.4:1-10).
Now, justice would have
called for the death of Cain. Genesis 9:6, "Whoso sheddeth
man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." For his own reasons, and God
doesn’t even explain what his reason’s are, and
without any kind of remorse on Cain’s part, God graciously did not kill him. It
was purely a matter of grace that he was allowed to
live. And, more than that, he sent him into exile, but
he put a mark on Cain. The mark that was put upon Cain, however, was not a
punishment, it was to preserve his life and to warn other men that they must
not touch Cain (Gen.4:11-15), because they knew Cain’s punishment was death! Why’d he do that? He did that because God is gracious.
More time passes, and
things really deteriorate on the earth. The earth is filled
with violence, and things got so bad that God finally decided he was sorry he
ever started the project! Yea, he said, "I’m sorry I ever put man on the
earth". Now, I realize that this runs counter to
the idea that God knows everything in advance. What can I tell you? God comes
on the scene and says, "I’m sorry I ever started this mess." He
really was!
You know, it seems better
to me that if I want to know God, and I really want to know what he’s like, I had better take him as he is, and not as I want
him to be. God was sorry, he wished he hadn’t done it.
Remember, God is not a computer. This is not a program that was written long
ago that we’re running out and all we are is a bunch of electrical currents
running around through wires and running across switches in a computer that are
either on or off. That is not what’s happening here.
Genesis 6:5-6, "And
GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every
imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it
repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his
heart." How would you say it if you don’t want to
say, "I wish I hadn’t done it"? Genesis 6:7, "And the LORD said,
I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man,
and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them." God was sorry he
even made them.
You know, it really is
foolish to go around apologizing for God, but that's
what a lot of us try to do when we try to find explanations of this passage of
scripture that somehow will reconcile of what we think we know about God, with
what he’s actually doing in here. Far smarter, folks, to just take what he’s doing in here as fact. And I’m
sorry if it’s upsetting to some people to learn that God does not control
everything. By his own choice, God does not control everything. That’s why you get into the trouble you get into!
So, God decided to end the whole
earth. Just wipe it out, start over again, maybe someplace
else. And except for one thing, he would have. That
one thing is in Genesis 6:8, "But Noah found grace in the eyes of the
LORD." Now mind you, Noah was a good man, he was righteous in all of his
generations. But if you think that that is the reason
why Noah and his family survived the flood, you have it all wrong. That’s not what the Bible says. Noah found grace in the eyes
of the LORD. He was a good man, but he was not that good.
More time passes, and God
strikes up a friendship with a man named Abraham. And
this is really fascinating because this friendship is remarkably personal. Now it’s remarkable to you and I because we don’t think of God,
normally, in the terms in which this passage of scripture, and the events that
I’m about to talk about, are written. We really don’t
think that way. We know God’s a person and we
visualize him on a throne somewhere, but we still have a hard time thinking of
him as a person who is personable with whom we can relate. We try, we want to,
but we think of him as remote, distant, far off, high and lifted up, and
untouchable, unapproachable, and all those adjectives I might put on him. I
know you might tell me, "No, I don’t believe that",
but I’m talking about not what you say you believe, I’m talking about the way
you feel about God. The way you respond to God. The way you react to the scriptures. The way you react to
life in general tells me that most of us really don’t
think of God in these terms. God, remember, is not a computer, he’s a person.
So he comes to see Abraham one day.
This occasion, we’re not really told in what form he
came, only that he and Abraham are talking back and forth. And
God wants Abraham to have a son, and he wants him to have it by Sarah. Now this
is an interesting thing, because this is obviously a person, God is God, who
has preferences, because Abraham has got a son by his
wife’s handmaid named Ishmael. And as far as any
particular requirement of God’s original promises, all this stuff could have
gone straight forward with Ishmael, and all would be well. Right?
There’s no real problem here. But
that’s not what he wanted! Why did God do it this way? He did it this way
because he wanted it this way! And for God, that’s
enough! You know, if you’re God, you can have what you
want. He wanted Abraham to have a son by Sarah.
You know when you know
someone, and you’re a friend with someone, you’re also
a friend with his wife, and vice versa. Right? And we
really care about one another’s couples too, and the love that often times
develop on our friends, where we see each other, and squeal with delight, run
and hug one another back and forth. When you’re
dealing with couples, the love for a couple is a combined thing. And one of the terrible things that happens with divorce is
this rupture of a couple that so many of us have learned to love as a couple,
and now we’ve got to learn to relate to them separately.
Well, God knew Abraham and
Sarah, and he liked them. Now, I choose the phrase, "he liked them"
because we think of God as, "Well, God loves all men",
and we speak that as a platitude. We need to understand he liked these people,
cared about them. So he wanted them to have a son by
Sarah. So God said, "Abraham, I’m going to see to
it that Sarah has a son". Abraham, then, laughed! Now, he didn’t just laugh, he fell on the ground laughing! With God there. And he is not
laughing for joy, if you read the account very carefully you will see this is
true (Gen.17:16-17). He is laughing because the idea of he and Sarah having a
baby is ridiculous! It’s laughable. It’s
funny. And he really doesn’t believe it. He hasn’t got his mind right, he can’t quite deal with it. Fell
on the ground.
Now, think about this for a
moment. God is present, they’re talking, God says,
"You and Sarah are going to have a son", and he starts laughing,
falls on the ground laughing, in front of God! Do you think God would be
offended? Well, it’s fascinating, most of you people
here would not be able to laugh in the presence of God no matter what he said.
You just couldn’t do it! All of your strings would be
so tight, if you were in the presence of God, God would probably look at you
and say, "Son, you are not a fish, close your mouth!"
What’s also interesting about this is that
God did not smite Abraham with boils for laughing at him. Did
he? What’d he do? You know, an ungracious God
would have been insulted. When he made Abraham a promise, he’d
say, "What are you laughing at me for? I made you a promise! I’m going to give you and this woman a son! Why are you
laughing?! Get up!!!" But that would have been very ungracious, would it not? And God is not ungracious, he is gracious! Abraham falls on
the ground laughing, and I think God looked down on him and said, "Well,
just wait, you’ll see." I think God takes a certain amount of pleasure in
doing things the hard way. And this also tells me that
God has a sense of humor, for he was able to see why Abraham would laugh, and
not get offended by it, because God is gracious.
More time passes, and God
comes to call on Abraham on his way to
Now, does it seem out of
the ordinary for you that God and two angels would sit down and wash their
feet? That God and two angels would sit down and eat food that Abraham placed
before them? Do their feet get dirty? Do they get hungry? Well, when they are
in the flesh, which apparently they can be in the flesh when they choose to do
so, they do get dirty and they do get hungry. And I also
thought, "God created man and he created food, and he created food so that
it would taste good". And I can see God saying to
the two angels that are on their way to
God, who created man and
created food and created all things good in their
time, is quite capable of appearing in the flesh and enjoying the things that
he made possible. And like he said, "I know we
can get a good feed at Abraham’s house". And God,
I suspect, enjoyed good food! Strange, isn’t it?
But, as he left Abraham to go on to
My question is, "How
come he didn’t already know if he is a computer that has sensors all around the
world?!" How come he didn’t
know? Why did God have to go down there himself to find out? Another example
that shows that God doesn’t know everything is in
Genesis 22, when God tested Abraham. He told Abraham to sacrifice his son
because God wanted to find out something. After God tested Abraham and stopped
him from slaying his son at the last moment, God said, "now I know that
thou fearest God" (verse 12). The implication is
that before that period of time, there was some degree
of uncertainty as to what Abraham would do.
All right, think about this
for a moment. God knows everything, that’s our
assumption. God is on his throne, wherever his throne is, and he is sitting up
there, and in front of him, across the room, there is this huge bank of videos.
And he’s got a clicker in his hand.
Now, I want you to tell me,
can you visualize God sitting on his throne, clicking across the television
sets up there, and finally seeing one, and having it focus in close on what was
going on in the back rooms of
But he did receive the
reports (Ezekiel 9:4,11) from his angels about
What a leader he is! It’s beyond my capacity to describe or imagine, but more and
more I keep getting these little hints in the Bible to realize what a
tremendous person this is. A real person who is willing to come down and get
his feet dirty on the earth and have to wash them to get them clean, who will
enjoy a good meal, who will stand and talk to Abraham about what he’s about to
do and share this thoughts with him. And who is not
willing to judge from afar off on hearsay of what somebody else told him, but
was going to force himself to go down and confront
Well, the men turned their
faces from thence and they went on towards
Now isn’t
that interesting?
Abraham knew God, God was his friend and he was God’s friend, and he was able
to say to God, "That’s not like you". Why wasn’t it like God? Because God is
gracious! He’s not the kind of person to do
that. Abraham said, "I can’t believe that you would do that!" And God said, "No, if I find in
Why would God let Abraham
talk him down like this? Why didn’t he just shut him
up the first time out of his mouth, "Look, Abraham, don’t even worry about
it. I’ll do what’s right, you go mind your own business
and I’ll take care of mine". Why didn’t God do
that? Because God is gracious. And
gracious people don’t do that, they listen, they hear you out, they want to
know how you feel about it, they want to respond. And
God wanted to do as much as he could what Abraham was asking.
And there’s another thing about God that
I think you should know. God does not like the idea of executing judgment. He
takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Exe.18:32; 33:11). It is not
something that he wants to do. He doesn’t like killing people, even when they
have it coming, even when they richly deserve it, even when they ought to be
dead and they ought to die in a horrible way, God does not like that! He doesn’t want to do it, and he will take whatever reason
comes to hand that he can use, to be gracious, and to grant grace to someone
who does not deserve it. There are so many examples of this in the Old
Testament, we could be here all day reviewing them, but let me give you the
definitive example of what it is I’m driving at.
Still more time passes, and God finds himself a prophet. The man’s name is
Jonah. And he says to Jonah, "I want you to go to
that great city
He goes into the city and
starts preaching, "Yet forty days and
I don't
know if you remember it or not, but the primary reason God said he was going
down to
Well, how can he do that? I
mean, he had made a flat out prophesy, we have a promise of God! There is absolutely nothing equivocal about it. If you ever wanted to
know where God said something he was going to do, you have it right there. And he didn't do it! He felt sorry for those people, because
they repented. They at least acted like they were
sorry, showed signs of sorrow, and who knows whether it would last two days or
five days or a week, but God said that's enough, and he didn't do it.
But it displeased Jonah, exceedingly,
and he was very angry! That's what I want you to get.
Because I sometimes feel, folks, that we're just a
whole lot closer to Jonah in our attitude than we are to God. Because Jonah was not gracious about this at all. It
displeased him. And he prayed to the Lord and said,
"I say this! Before I ever left, I knew that you were a gracious God,
merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repent of evil. And you
won't even carry out what you say you will do!?" (Jonah 4:1-2).
That's what he said! He was furious, he was upset with God because God wouldn't do what
he said he would do. "Therefore take my life. It's better for me to die
than to live". Jehovah was not the kind of God
that Jonah wanted him to be. Simple as that. Jonah is
the archetype of a man that wants his religion by the numbers. He didn't want
There's a real irony in it, though. If God
had been the kind of God that Jonah said he wanted, he
would have taken a giant fly swatter and turn Jonah into so much road kill. If
that was the kind of God that Jonah really wanted. So God said, "Are you doing well to be this angry?
Should you really be this hot under the collar?"
Jonah 4:5-6, "So Jonah
went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him
a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of
the city. And the LORD God prepared a gourd, and made
it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver
him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the
gourd." Now mind you, I said earlier that God has a sense of humor,
there are a lot of ways to teach men things. God chose
this.
Then God prepared a worm
when the morning rose the next day, and as a result of
the worm, the stupid plant died before the day was over. And
it came to pass the next day, when the sun came up, God prepared a vehement
east wind, and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he passed out! And when he came to he wished he was dead. "It is
better for me to die than to live". And God said to Jonah, "Are you doing the right thing
here? Is it OK for you to be angry about this plant?" And
he said, "Yes! Yes, I do well to be angry, even unto death! I want to die!"
Then said the LORD, "You had had pity on the plant, for the
which you did not labor, you didn't build that thing, you didn't make it
grow, you didn't even plant it! It came up in the night, and
perished in the night: And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein
are more than six score thousand persons (that's one hundred twenty thousand)
that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and a lot of
sheep and goats and cows and so forth, that I kind of feel sorry for to?"
(Jonah 4:7-11).
"You could feel sorry
for that plant, and you don't think I have the right to feel sorry for a bunch
of people in a town that don't even know what's going on around them?" Why
did God do that? Because he's gracious. Now are you
beginning to see what I mean when I say that grace is an Old Testament
doctrine? It is written throughout the Old Testament.
You encounter grace again and again and again, and I
don't understand why! As we read the Old Testament, we focus in on all the
things that Jonah wants, and forget all the things that God wants!
Sure God is strict. Sure
God is stern. Sure he is a God of Justice. Sure
sometimes he comes down. Sure he incinerated
Does it strike you as odd
at all that I talk about grace as a doctrine? Does it strike you as odd that we
have a lot to say about doctrine? I mean, we got doctrine over this that we
make up, and we argue doctrine and discuss doctrine, and go on and on about
doctrine, and we divide Churches over doctrine, and we won't speak to friends
over doctrine, we have doctrine coming out of our ears! Why don't we talk about
grace?! If grace is a doctrine of God, why does it not
play a huge role in the whole panoply of doctrine that we have out here? Of
course, it's kind of hard to divide over grace.
There's a funny thing about grace in the
New Testament. In all four gospels, the complete accounts of all of Jesus'
life, ministry, and works, there is not a single instance in all the gospels
where Jesus ever used the word "grace".
Strange, isn't it? One might have thought, especially
if grace was a doctrine, that somewhere along the line, Jesus would expound the
doctrine of grace. Grace was not a doctrine that Jesus preached. Then what role
did grace play in his ministry? Was it there?
Luke
John
John 1:15-17, "John
bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of
whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred
before me: for he was before me. And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. For the
law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." The law
is a wonderful thing, but if you're looking for a
computer, or something to compare to a computer, the law might compare. But the law is not God. God is gracious. God is not like a
computer, God is personal and kind and merciful and forgiving.
If you really want to know
what is wrong with the
The truth is, we have not received in ourselves enough of God's grace to
be able to share it with others. If we had received it, we would be more
gracious! Right? In order for us to be gracious with
others, we have got to receive grace in ourselves.
Do you remember the woman
who came in to Jesus one day when he was reclining at food? And
she walked up behind him and she was weeping, and she bent down and she was
weeping so copiously that she was able to wash his feet with her tears. And she then took her long hair and wiped his feet with her
hair (Luke
Now when John tried to get
Jesus to stop a man who was successfully casting out demons in Jesus' name,
he's going, "In the name of Jesus Christ, come out of him!" and the
demon left, and John came to Jesus and said, "Let's stop that man, he is
not following after us!" (Mark
When he healed the Syrophenician's woman's daughter, you remember?
He was in
When he refused to condemn
this woman who washed his feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair, and
the Pharisees said, "She's a sinner, he ought to know better than
that", and he told the woman her sins were forgiven him (Luke 7:37-48),
what character trait made it possible for Jesus to do that? It was grace. When
he refused to condemn the woman who was taken in adultery, they brought her in
there, they said, "She was caught in the very act of adultery!", and
he said, "Whoever's without sin, let him cast the first stone", they
all left him alone, and he said to the woman, "Woman, where are your
accusers? Has no man condemned you?" and she said, "No man,
Lord" (John 8:3-11), and Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you: go,
and sin no more", what character trait enabled him to do that? It was
grace.
You know, after Pentecost,
the disciples of Jesus were very different men. Did you ever notice that? There's something important that happened to them, and it's
something, that seems to me, that we rarely ever take notice of. Acts
You know, when I look at
these things and I think of what ought to be, when I think of what we could
have done, and what we have done, and how much difficulty we are having in
working together, I wonder about this example of the woman who washed Jesus'
feet. The parable he gave Simon on that day, he said, "There were two men.
One of them came in and had this huge debt, and the master forgave him and
wrote it off. Then a man came in with a small debt and the master wrote that
off", and Jesus asked, "Which of these two
men will love him the most?" and Simon answered, "Well, him to whom
he forgave the most. Why?", and Jesus said, "He who has been forgiven
much, loves much" (Like
Hebrews 12:28, "Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which
cannot be moved, let us have grace," This is not just salt and pepper
thrown in here, folks. The Word has been abused and lost.
When he says, "Let us have grace", he means something! He means that
there should be something in us, something in our lives that enable us to serve
God sensibly with reverence and in Godly fear.
You know, maybe, in the end
analysis, grace is not a doctrine after all, because, to tell you the truth, I
don't know how we could ever have an argument about grace. May God help us to
learn to be gracious with one another.