Grace Classics: Escape to Reality Greatest Hits, Volume 2 (3 page)

Religion can be defined as man’s
attempt to impress God through self-improvement. It is an attitude that says,
“I can make something of myself, I can earn God’s favor.” This mindset is
fatally opposed to the grace of God. It causes a man to stand when he should
bow and to strut when he should kneel. Worst of all, it causes him to see
himself as a co-savior. His motives may be sincere, but he is an
idol-worshipper.

Jesus
didn’t suffer and die on the cross to make you religious. He died and rose
again to give you a new life—
his
life. Anything that pretends to be a
substitute for the thrill of knowing him—of trusting him, being with him, and
walking with him—should be rejected as inferior.

Are you
religious? Here is a simple test to find out. If any of the statements in the
test describes you, then you might be a little bit religious. Here’s why…

Are you preoccupied with doing
the right thing?

God is looking for relationship,
but a religious mindset is preoccupied with following the rules. “Just tell me
what to do and I will do it.” Whether you define the “right thing” as the 10
commandments, the words of Jesus, your church traditions, or whatever, living
by a code of conduct is infinitely inferior to the life Christ wants to live
through us. It is eating from the wrong tree.

An
independent spirit, such as Adam had, wants to decide for himself and thus
prefers rules to relationship. But someone under grace says, “I trust him from
start to finish. He will lead me in the way of life.”

Your
choice is rules or relationship. You cannot reduce relationship to a set of
rules. (Try it with your marriage and see how far that gets you!) Live by the
rules and you’re setting yourself up for failure, for any kind of law will
stimulate sin and lead to your defeat (Romans 7:9). Even when you do the right
thing it’ll be the wrong thing because you’ll be walking in the flesh instead
of walking by faith. But when you choose to abide in Christ you’ll find
yourself doing the right thing at the right time every time.

Do you act as if God is keeping
score?

A performance mentality is central
to every manmade religion: Do good, get good. Do bad, get bad. The problem with
this is your best is not good enough. If God was keeping score, all of us would
fall short. The religious mindset invariably leads to performance anxiety. God
expects perfection and nothing less. So either you must deliver a perfect
performance or you must put your faith in a perfect high priest.

Are you sin-conscious?

Sin-consciousness is the strongest
indicator of a religious mindset. Through his one-time sacrifice Jesus has done
away with all sin (1 John 2:2, Hebrews 9:26). Sin was a problem, but because of
Jesus it is no longer a problem. So what is the problem? The problem is whether
you will choose to believe in the all-sufficiency of Christ and his work or
trust in yourself and yours. Religion will keep the focus on you and your
unworthiness, but grace focuses on Christ and his worthiness.

Are you motivated by your
Christian duty?

Religion cries, “Jesus died for
you. What will you do for him?” I would do anything for Jesus, but if my
motivation is a perceived debt, then I’ve missed grace.

Whether it’s
disguised as duty or responsibility, a religious person fundamentally believes
that he is obligated or indebted to God. Such a person wants to work so that
they no longer owe him. Indeed, they want God to owe them. They want to be in a
position where God will have to bless them because of what they’ve done. This
debt-consciousness is opposed to the grace of God for grace comes with no strings
attached. There is no
quid pro quo
in a love-based relationship. The
believer who has been apprehended by love does not serve out of duty but
delight.

Do you fear God’s anger?

Listen to the mixed-up messages of
manmade religion and you may get the impression that God is a temperamental and
abusive Father who sometimes lashes out in fits of righteous wrath. In this
scenario Jesus is a sort of go-between who stands in the gap and takes our blows.
But the truth is that God the Father, Son and Spirit are perfectly united in
purpose and character. If you want to know what God the Father is like, look at
the Son (Hebrews 1:3).

How
could God get angry with us when he has promised not to be angry ever again (Isaiah
54:9–10)? At great personal cost God the Father and God the Son forged an
eternal and unshakeable covenant of peace. We are the beneficiaries of this
covenant. Why did he do it? Because he is your Father and he loves you. When
you have seen his love, any fear of punishment will evaporate (1 John 4:18).

Do you like doing things for
God?

Contrary to what religion has told
you, we are not called to work
for
God but to do the work
of
God
(John 6:29). Big difference. Working for God reveals our initiative, but faith
is always a response to what God is doing or has done.

The
Bible distinguishes dead works from good works. Dead works are those that seem
right to us but which lead to death. Good works are those which have been
prepared by God in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10). Dead works require no
faith—if you have the resources you can do them. Good works always reveal the
Father and may involve healing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing lepers,
and driving out demons (Matthew 10:8). As always, Jesus is our role model. He
did nothing on his own but lived a full and fruitful life in response to the
Father (John 5:19).

Do you see yourself mainly as a
servant of God?

Here is the question that
separates the religious from the righteous: Do you see God as your heavenly
Father, your
Papa
? The religious will hesitate to speak of the Almighty
in such familiar terms. They prefer say, “I would rather be a doorkeeper in the
house of my God” and so forth. Thinking it sufficient to be a servant, the
religious miss out on the best thing of all.

There
are only two kinds of people in the world: sons and orphans. Which are you? Religion
will leave you so confused about your identity that you will relate to God in
any way except as a son, yet Jesus came to reveal God your Father.

Like the
prodigal, you may see yourself as nothing more than a servant. Perhaps you left
the pig trough with a prepared speech that began, “make me like one of your
hired hands” (Luke 15:19). But God is not interested in that speech! Nor is he
recruiting servants. God sees you as a son (Galatians 4:6). Don’t argue with
your Father.

A word after

When someone says “I’m a servant
of God,” what they may mean is “I serve God.” Did you ever stop to ponder the audacity
of that statement? God created the universe with nothing but
words
. What
need does he have for servants? In what capacity
could
we possibly serve
him? If the God who sustains all things by his word went on holiday, we
couldn’t keep the universe running for a millisecond. “What happened? I was
only gone for a minute.”

When
Paul identifies himself as a servant of Christ, as he does at the start of some
of his letters, he is saying that he serves in the manner in which Christ
served. He’s saying, “I serve people in the Name of Jesus.” True, Paul does
talk about serving God on occasion, but how exactly did it he do that? What
form did his service take?

“God,
whom I serve with my whole heart in preaching the gospel of his Son…” (Romans
1:9). Paul considered preaching the gospel as service to God. That’s a neat way
to define service because God doesn’t actually need to hear the good news. He
invented it! But when we preach the gospel of his Son, God is blessed because
his family increases. He gets more sons and daughters. So one of the best ways
we can serve God and others is by proclaiming the good news of Jesus.

Life under the old covenant was so
much simpler than the free and confusing world of grace. Back then if you
wanted to stay on the straight and narrow, you just had to keep all the rules.
But in the kingdom of grace, there are no rules (1 Corinthians 6:12). A good
marriage doesn’t need them. For those unacquainted with the security of God’s
love, the absence of rules can be terrifying. “Help! Somebody tell me what to
do! I need rules!”

Enter
the holiness preachers.

Much of
what passes for holiness preaching today is old covenant theology dressed up in
new covenant ribbons. See if you can spot the difference:

Then:   God promised we would be his holy people if we kept
the rules. In other words,
the rules are a manual for holiness
.

Now:    Am I saved by the law? Oh, good heavens no. That’s
so old covenant. I don’t keep the law to earn salvation. But the law does show
me how to please the Lord. In other words,
the rules are a manual for
holiness.

Do you see the difference? Strip
away the mumbo-jumbo and there is no difference! Just read some of the comments
I get whenever I talk about the commands of Jesus and you will find 101
different ways of saying the same thing:
The rules are a manual for holy
living
.

The only
difference between then and now is that some of the rules have changed. The
Israelites lived by the ceremonial rules of Moses; today, many Christians make
up their own rules. “I obey the red letters of Jesus.” “I try to do everything
in the Bible.” “I just do whatever my pastor says.”

D.I.Y. holiness

Practical holiness is a term to
beware as it often comes hiding a fishhook. Much of it is pure mixture, as the
following soundbites illustrate:

·
        
“Following Christ is a lifestyle.”
(True.) “We’ve got to keep his commands to be his disciples.” (Nope—that’s
backwards. That’s putting the fruit before the tree.)

·
        
“Find out what pleases the Lord.”
(Okay!) “Keeping his instructions pleases him.” (But that’s a recipe for the
sort of faithless, law-based living that nullifies grace and inflames sin.
Jesus pleases the Lord. Trust him.)

·
        
“If you sow to the flesh you will reap
destruction.” (Yep). “So we have to be earnest in getting people to improve
themselves and modify their behavior.” (But that’s sowing to the flesh! You’re
setting them up for failure.)

Holiness
preaching that emphasizes
what you must do
is carnal Christianity. Make
no mistake, it comes straight out of the old covenant. Heed this sort of
teaching and you will exalt the flesh at the expense of grace. And it won’t
make you holy.

There
are at least four ways to determine whether the holiness message you’re
listening to reflects the condemning covenant of the law or the new and
liberating covenant of grace:

• Old covenant holiness is based on who
  you are and is sold as a list of things you must do; new covenant holiness
  is based on who Christ is (our holiness—1 Corinthians 1:30) and what he
  has done (sanctified you—Romans 11:16).
  
• Old covenant holiness emphasizes imperfect
  sacrifices you are expected to make; new covenant holiness emphasizes the
  perfectly perfect sacrifice of the Lamb, by which you have been “perfected
  forever” (Hebrews 10:14).
  
• Old covenant holiness is sold as a
  process of progressive sanctification—something “we grow into” as we
  become more like Christ; new covenant holiness is presented as a done deal
  and something to live out (1 Corinthians 1:2).
  
• Old covenant holiness comes with a big
  stick—“the Lord may condemn you if you don’t deliver”; new covenant
  holiness has exhortations but no sticks because there is no condemnation
  to those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1).
  

Beware frowners preaching
holiness

Because of these differences in
message, we can also recognize differences in the messenger. An old covenant
holiness preacher will come across as serious and threatening. He will remind
you of Moses warning the Israelites at the foot of Mt Sinai. But a new covenant
holiness preacher will come across as life-giving and inspirational. He will
remind you of Jesus speaking the words of eternal life. An old covenant
preacher will speak the faithless language of longing and lack. But a new
covenant preacher will bracket any exhortations with affirmations like these:

As for
other matters, brothers and sisters, we instructed you how to live in order to
please God,
as in fact you are living
... (1 Thessalonians 4:1a, emphasis
added).

Now
about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you
yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. And
in fact, you do
love
all of God’s family throughout Macedonia. (1 Thessalonians 4:9–10a,
emphasis added)

How to preach holiness

One day I plan to do a series on
how to preach holiness the same way the apostles did it. For those who can’t
wait, here’s the short version: To be holy is to partake of his wholeness; it
is to stop acting broken (because in him we are not broken) and to allow him to
express his whole and beautiful life through us.

The
challenge is that being holy is a new experience for us. As sinners, our lifestyle
was characterized by brokenness and hurt. Holy living was alien to us. Now that
we are in him we have to learn to walk in our new and God-given identity.

The
wrong way to approach this is to think of yourself as a flawed sinner trying to
become holy. That’s not who you are and that’s not how it works. Instead, see
yourself as a toddler learning to walk. Just as you wouldn’t spank an infant if
they stumbled and fell, neither will your heavenly Father spank you. He doesn’t
condemn you when you fall; he encourages you to get up and walk!

He has
given you everything you need for life and godliness. In Christ you lack
nothing. You just need to work out who you already are and what he has already
given you. This is the adventure of holy living.

A word after

A reader asked me whether we
should give grace to believers when all is going well, but when they’re not
doing well give them law so they’ll be driven back to grace. This is a bad idea
for we are to live under grace, not a mixture of law and grace. Grace is not a
reward to be doled out for good behavior or withdrawn for bad. Turn the
priceless grace of God into a carrot and it ceases to be grace. Grace is like
oxygen. We need it to live, in good times and bad.

Paul
said “the law was added so that the trespass might increase” (Romans 5:20a).
Give law to a struggling believer and things will go from bad to worse. The law
will do to their sin what kerosene does to a flame.

What
draws people to grace? Grace does (see John 12:32). Grace is the most
attractive force in the universe and anything we add to it only diminishes its
drawing power.

The Good
Shepherd calls his sheep by name and they come. He does not need “the sheepdog
of the law” to round them up.

The law
is not your sheepdog, watchdog or guide dog. The law was put in place to lead
you to Christ so that you might be justified by faith (Galatians 3:24). Have
you come to Christ? Have you been born again? Then you have no further need of
the law. It has done its job. Paul says the law was not made for the righteous
(1 Timothy 1:9), and in Christ
you are righteous
. In Christ you are also
holy (Hebrews 10:10).

“But
what happens if I act unholy? Don’t I need the law to set me straight?” No,
that is not the law’s purpose. As DL Moody may have said, “The law tells me how
crooked I am. Grace comes along and straightens me out.”

You were
not made holy by keeping the law and you are not made unholy by breaking it.
You are holy because the Holy One lives in you. And if the Vine be holy, then
so are his branches.