The Grace of Christ
JOEL ENGLE

One of the most empowering and freeing revelations hit me not too long ago! It is one of the most overlooked, misunderstood, majestic concepts in all of Scripture. Songs, sermons, and books have been written about this subject, yet few people ever tap into its glorious and liberating power. It is the doctrine of grace, which I would like to discuss for a few moments with you.

I am a worship leader and a speaker who is quite fortunate to travel abroad and minister in the local church. I have been doing this for almost 15 years now and I am confident to say I have seen many lives impacted for the kingdom of God. But almost every time I end a conference, camp or event, I wonder, "Are these people going to go back to their daily routine and see the power of God transform them forever, or are they going to go back to their former way of life?" Then comes the reality that a high majority start strong and finish poorly. So I would think, "I need to preach harder, worship stronger and make these people realize they need to get more committed to Christ!" So I would preacher harder. I would lead worship stronger (and longer!). Yet the exact same scenario would continue: utter failure. People were giving up in tragic defeat, and I couldn't understand why. Then, by God's mercy, the realization came. The Christian life is not merely hard to live out, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO LIVE OUT!

The Foolish Galatians
In the book of Galatians, the apostle Paul was writing to the churches he had helped establish with the preaching of the gospel. The gospel that he preached was something like this, "Grace and peace to from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age." (Galatians 1:3-4) Salvation, the forgiveness and pardon for our sins, comes from the love and mercy of God the Father, through the work of Jesus Christ, our substitute, in that He paid for our sins on the cross of Calvary and purchased a place for us with Him in heaven.

Yet, after Paul left, some spiritual impostors came, called the Judaizers, and basically told the Galatians that Paul was a second rate apostle and that to be saved from sin, one needed to combine the work of Christ with obeying and practicing the Law. Paul was heartbroken over the Galatians that they could be so easily deceived by false teachers. They had forsaken the grace of God and had begun to try to earn favor with God with good works. The only problem was that God has never, ever been satisfied with the performance of human flesh, not in Old testament times or now. He promised Abraham that He would send a Savior to the world to pay for man's transgression against Him. Galatians 3:6-8 says, "Consider Abraham: 'He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.' Understand, then that those who believe are children of Abraham. The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham." The promise to Abraham is the same promise to us, that faith in God's redeeming power, the Messiah, would come and pay sin's penalty! Listen to what Jesus, the Messiah, said to the Pharisees in John 8:56, "Your Father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad." The gospel of the Old Testament is the same gospel for us: Jesus is the only way for true forgiveness.

But how we as humans tend to forget the greatest truth of history! The Galatians had the apostle Paul lay the foundation of the gospel and they still turned to another false gospel! So Paul had to remind them again that Christ and only Christ can forgive sin and restore peace with God the Father. "We who are Jews by birth and not 'Gentile sinners' know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified." (Galatians 2:15-16) No one is justified by God because they do good things! (Yes, I am going somewhere with this, my worship-leader friends!)

Defeated Believers
So many believers in today's contemporary church have unwittingly become captive again by the yoke of slavery in performance-oriented, do-better Christianity. These sincere children of God have simply given up hope that the resurrection power of Christ can heal their marriages, mend their hearts and empower their daily lives. I believe this horrific tragedy has occurred due to the fact that many don't know the wonderful truth that they have been completely and totally set free, forgiven in Jesus Christ. The same gospel that saves the lost sinner from hell itself is the same gospel that empowers the mature believer every single day of their natural lives. It is Jesus and only faith in Jesus that can enable us to do the works of Christ. We ourselves flat-out can't do it! Romans 8:7 clearly states, "the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so." Even though we know Christ and more importantly are known by Christ, we live in a body that has been tainted and consumed by sin. In essence, apart from Christ, we are sin addicts. Yet because we are in Christ and have the Holy Spirit indwelling us, we are new creations. The old things (the sinful nature) have been done away with (2 Corinthians 5:17). That is why Paul said, "For I am crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

Misguided Efforts
I would venture to say that many ministers have gone back to trying to combine grace and law together in their local church ministries. It is so easy to do. I know, because I have been guilty of doing this myself. Our natural inclination as human beings is to try to figure out some way to earn God's favor. We mix grace and law together because it's so hard to accept that God mercifully forgives our sins and we can do nothing to deserve that gracious gift. It is very easy in the ministry to try to scare people into living godly lives. However, it doesn't yield eternal results. This is such an incredibly dangerous thing to slip into, and we have to be very careful to keep this doctrine pure in our lives and in our ministries. Martin Luther on this matter says, "It seems a light matter to mingle the law and the gospel, faith and works together, but it does more harm than a man's reason can conceive, for it takes away Christ with all His benefits, and overthrows the gospel."

We must be so careful to communicate to those in our care that Jesus is the source of our daily living because it is He that has forgiven all our sins and He that is our sustaining power in our lives through His precious Holy Spirit who dwells in us. He has stamped His righteousness on the heart of every single person who apprehends him by faith. "In Him we have the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding." (Ephesians 1:7) Paul goes on to say in Ephesians 1:13-14, "And you were also included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit GUARANTEEING our inheritance until the redemption of those who are in God's possession." We have the wonderful guarantee of Christ, whose promises cannot be broken, that we who are His children are His forever.

Grace Givers
Yet so many live under fear and guilt and shame, and have given up on their God-given inheritance as a believer in Christ. As worship leaders we must gently remind those under our care that God's forgiveness is real and that He longs to empower His children with His Spirit's power everyday. We must remind them over and over that we are helpless in our own strength to attain righteousness and that only daily dependence in faith on Christ is the pathway to freedom. We must remind them that Christ is our righteousness once and for all and that walking in the Spirit in the only way to see the fruits of holiness in our lives, not by our feeble, mortal efforts. We must remind them that all of the disciplines in Christendom do not conform us to the image of Christ on their own, but only in Christ will we be like Christ. Does that mean that God has abolished all good works? Of course not! Good works are a sign of the Spirit of God working in a person's life. They are the result of authentic faith. But the works of the flesh and the works of the Spirit are quite different (read Galatians 5). When we realize that the only righteousness that exists in the universe is found in Christ and not in ourselves, then we will be on the right pathway to applying the grace of God in our lives.

Prayer
Thank you Holy Father for giving us your Son! In Him we find we can rest from our selfish effort to please You because of His blood that was shed for our sins! We thank You and we love You. You have mercifully lavished Your love on us that we are Your children and You are our Father forever.