Have you ever gotten a gift completely unexpected--for no reason at all?
Not a birthday gift
Not a Christmas gift
Not a gift that is meant as an apology when your spouse messes up.
Not one that is given because your friend knows you’re down and hopes to cheer you up.
Not one given because someone wants something from you.
Not one given as a thank you or a get well.
Not for any other reason...
Really think about it.
Have you ever truly gotten a gift that wasn't directly related to anything you did...or to anything that happened to you.
Just an out-of-the-blue gift.
I'm lucky to have been blessed with an awesome family and amazing friends so I have been lucky enough to experience these unexpected blessings a few times in my life.
I have to say they are better than any other gift I've ever gotten.
Why?
--I know I haven't done anything special to earn them.
--I don't have to do anything in return for them.
--I had no expectations, so there is no way I can be disappointed by them
--I know they were given just to show love to me.
THIS IS WHAT GODS GRACE SHOULD LOOK LIKE TO US.
Unfortunately many of us have a tainted view of what the gift of God’s grace is.....
Some of us think we have earned it and are deserving of it.
Some of us think we have to earn it.
Some of us place great expectations on this gift.
Some of us want to compare the gift we’ve received to those around us and make sure no one else is getting a better one than ours.
(Matthew storie about workers in the field)
Have you experienced people like this?
The people who think they've earned this gift view it as a "paycheck" for all the great and wonderful things that they have done to further God's kingdom.
Two problems:
#1-- it's not a paycheck....it's a gift.
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God
Ephesians 2:7-9
If God wanted it to be something we had to earn, it wouldn’t be called a gift. If your boss came up to you at the end of the week and said "Hey, I have a gift for you", and handed you your pay---wouldn't that make you mad? You worked hard for that money and now your boss is acting as though he is doing you a FAVOR by paying you?! No way!
This isn't how God wants you to view his grace. It is a gift, not a paycheck. When we start to view it as a paycheck we begin to feel it is something we are entitled to.
Then Jesus told this story to some who had great confidence in their own righteousness and scorned everyone else: “Two men went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a despised tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: ‘I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else. For I don’t cheat, I don’t sin, and I don’t commit adultery. I’m certainly not like that tax collector! I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.’ I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
Luke 18: 9-14
#2--God’s grace is not just a gift....it is a priceless one. Most of us wouldn't go into work and work day after day after day only to realize week after week after week that we didn't do enough work to earn a paycheck for that week.
You'd get tired of it and quit wouldn't you?
That's what happens to a lot of people who think that their actions, (or their lack of sin) earn them the grace of God. They work, work, work to be good to do right to follow the rules; and they never hear from God. They get frustrated and they begin to question His love for them.
None of us are free of sin while we are on this Earth. We could never work hard enough or long enough to earn the grace that God has given to us through His son, Jesus.
And since it is through God’s kindness, then it is not by their good works. For in that case, God’s grace would not be what it really is—free and undeserved.
Romans 11:5-7
Then there are the people who think you get God’s grace and then you have to work the rest of your life to earn it. A lot of people I’ve talked to (in and outside church) have misconceptions on this. I have heard from many people who say they ran from God for years because they knew they couldn't be a “good Christian” and follow all the rules. They didn’t want to become one of the hypocrites who go to church and “live a sinful life”. They believe that once you received the gift of grace, it had to be repayed by living a perfect life and never sinning again. (News flash: no one on this Earth is free of sin!)
Sound crazy right? Cause we are all Christians and we know that's not how God works! We know that none of us is without sin.
Unfortunately, I've heard many Christians who help to spread this myth. (Those people outside the church get their messed-up perspectives from somewhere, you know.) Usually it sounds like this:
"If he (or she) was a good Christian he (or she) wouldn’t........fill this in with whatever!!" (have tattoos, drink, smoke, swear, be in debt, wear those clothes….etc.)
When you make comments like these, you are continuing the myth that people have to look a certain way and act a certain way if they love God. Not true! God loves everyone exactly the way they are right now. Nothing there is no dress requirement or behavior contract that people have to agree to in order to experience that love.
God changes people in His own time, if it is His desire to do so. But he doesn’t expect any of us to do anything to earn His love. The problem with thinking you need to do (or not do) certain things to earn Gods grace is that it leads to resentment.
It's like the husband who brings home gifts to his wife every time he wants permission to go away on a golfing trip. Eventually, she learns that those aren't “free” gifts…there is actually an expectation (I can go golfing now, because I was so good to you) that goes along with them. If he does this enough, she is eventually going to be resentful and angry every time he shows up with a gift in his hands. She knows he is going to expect her to stay home with the kids while he goes away.
God doesn’t give his grace expecting something from us.
God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted.
John 3:15-17
He gives us his grace because he loves us. He’s the husband who comes home and gives his wife a gift just to show her he loves her. Sometimes that gift results in change in us. When we feel truly feel loved and appreciated; often we want to find ways to honor that gift.
Some of us have expectations of God’s grace. We think that because God has forgiven us and loves us; we no longer have to deal with the problems in our lives. When we discover that our problems are still there; we feel like God has let us down.
God doesn’t promise anywhere that his grace will make our troubles here on Earth disappear. Actually, he warns us of the struggles we will have ahead of us:
There's far more to this life than trusting in Christ. There's also suffering for him. And the suffering is as much a gift as the trusting.
Philippians 1:26-28
If you have an expectation of a worry-free life because of God’s grace, you ARE going to be disappointed. He doesn’t take your problems away. Once you have accepted Christ as your Saviour, you become Satan’s enemy and he will try very hard to turn you away from God. You can expect problems ahead. But you can also expect His grace and love to help you through them all:
Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.
Philippians 4:5-7
The other problem with expectation is that it leads to comparisons. Especially here in America, we always want to make sure we are getting as much as everyone else. Siblings compare Christmas and birthday gifts to make sure they aren’t getting the short end of the deal. We compare our salaries and bonuses with that of other in our people in our profession. We want to make sure we get all that is coming to us. God’s grace doesn’t work this way. We see an example of this in Matthew:
An estate manager went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. They agreed on a wage of a dollar a day, and went to work. Later, about nine o'clock, the manager saw some other men hanging around the town square unemployed. He told them to go to work in his vineyard and he would pay them a fair wage. They went. He did the same thing at noon, and again at three o'clock. At five o'clock he went back and found still others standing around. He said, 'Why are you standing around all day doing nothing?' They said, 'Because no one hired us.' He told them to go to work in his vineyard. When the day's work was over, the owner of the vineyard instructed his foreman, 'Call the workers in and pay them their wages. Start with the last hired and go on to the first.'
Those hired at five o'clock came up and were each given a dollar. When those who were hired first saw that, they assumed they would get far more. But they got the same, each of them one dollar. Taking the dollar, they groused angrily to the manager, 'These last workers put in only one easy hour, and you just made them equal to us, who slaved all day under a scorching sun.' He replied to the one speaking for the rest, 'Friend, I haven't been unfair. We agreed on the wage of a dollar, didn't we? So take it and go. I decided to give to the one who came last the same as you. Can't I do what I want with my own money? Are you going to get stingy because I am generous?'
Most of us, I think, can identify with the men who went to work earliest and got paid the same as those who started later. They were angry. We can relate to that. We cannot comprehend the generosity of God.
I had a friend argue with me and insist that people who live good lives here on Earth and obey all God’s commands will have special rewards in heaven. Maybe she’s right (neither of us will really know for sure until we get there)...but I think this story contradicts that. Jesus is saying we all get the same reward…even if we come in the last hour.
Some people are very offended by that. We see this played out in Luke 15, while his father is celebrating the return of the Prodigal Son, his brother is angry:
The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, 'Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!'
'My son,' the father said, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.'
We need to celebrate and be glad when people find God; and stop comparing our own actions and deeds to one another.
Grace is not a reward.
It's not a bribe.
It's not something you deserve.
It's not something any of us could earn or fathom.
It is given by God as a gift just because we love Him and that makes Him glad.
